Composer

Sunday Chamber Music – 1

BFO Rehearsal Hall

Step into a world of dark tales, mystery and dancing rhythms as the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and viola soloist, also this season's P2 Classical Artist, Ami-Louise Johnsson are led by Taiwanese conductor Yi-Chen Lin. The music moves between deep lyricism and narrative drama – from Bohuslav Martinů's poignant Rhapsody-Concerto for Viola, where the solo part glows with feelings, to Antonín Dvořák's evocative The Noon Witch , a musical tale with both humor and horror. Finally, Zoltán Kodály's Dances of Galánta lift the Swedish Radio concert hall with its exuberance of energy, virtuosity and folk charm.

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Dark tales and dances

Berwaldhallen

This season's opening concert might well be heard as an echo of the Prague Philharmonia's long-awaited 2026 US tour, one that took the orchestra to three states and culminated in a phenomenally successful debut at New York's Carnegie Hall. Under the baton of music director Emmanuel Villaume, for this very special evening the orchestra welcomes another of its US touring partners, outstanding Canadian violin talent Blake Pouliot.

Martinů. Barber. Beethoven

Rudolfinum

The Czech Pavel Haas Quartet bring their characteristic joie de vivre to three engaging quartets, by composers who reached across the Atlantic to explore new musical avenues.

Pavel Haas Quartet

The Queen's Hall

On this season-finale concert featuring music by three great Czech composers, John Storgårds and Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt kick things off with Martinů’s invigorating, folk-tune-infused Three Madrigals for Violin and Viola—a work that also draws inspiration from Beethoven and Renaissance music. William Hagen, Clive Greensmith, and Anthony Manzo play the delightful Trio in G Major for Violin, Cello, and Double Bass by 18th-century Classical composer Josef Mysliveček, who was a close friend of Mozart’s, and, to bring the program—and the season—to a powerful close, pianist Juho Pohjonen joins forces with the Dover Quartet for one of the most beloved standouts of the chamber music repertoire: Dvořák’s rousing Piano Quintet, Op. 81.

Czech Masters

Lensic Performing Arts Center

In French Reflections, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra Fellows present a sophisticated selection of chamber works spanning Baroque splendour to 20th‑century brilliance. Lully’s regal dances open a program enriched by Saint‑Saëns’ elegant Septet and Poulenc’s refined lyricism. Martinů’s La Revue de cuisine brings rhythmic vitality and modern flair, complemented by Bernovsky’s striking Trio for Brass. This concert showcases the Fellows’ artistry across a vivid palette of ensemble colours and historical styles.

French Reflections

Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church

Capturing the frenetic spirit of the 1930s and ’40s, conductor Kevin John Edusei leads a vibrant program that highlights Rachmaninoff’s fiery Symphonic Dances, his last major composition, which The Cleveland Orchestra plays side-by-side with the Kent Blossom Chamber Orchestra. The swirling Hungarian rhythms of Kodály’s Dances of Galánta open the evening before giving way to Martinů’s energetic First Cello Concerto, performed by Principal Cello Mark Kosower.

Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances

Blossom Music Center

Ilumina fully lives up to the meaning of its name, which comes from the Portuguese verb ‘to illuminate’ or ‘to enlighten’. Founded in 2015 by violist Jennifer Stumm to offer world-class training and opportunities to talented musicians from disadvantaged backgrounds, the ensemble travels far from its home on an organic coffee farm near Sao Paolo, Brazil to reach the world’s leading concert halls. Only a poet could do justice to the combustible energy, collective commitment and life-enhancing artistry cultivated by Ilumina’s amazing players.

Ilumina

Wigmore Hall

The Snowdon Ensemble/Ensemble Yr Wyddfa - named after Wales's highest peak - makes its debut with the first concert in the TIR series, an exploration of time and place through music. CANRIF//CENTURY · PARIS looks at the music that defined a century, from the vantage point of now, featuring a new commission by RWCMD composer Harry Woodman.

Snowdon Ensemble presents: CANRIF//CENTURY • Paris

Bute Park

An attractive concert offering a selection of the most famous choral scenes from operas by Bohuslav Martinů, Leoš Janáček, Antonín Dvořák, and from no fewer than six stage works by Bedřich Smetana.

Smetana: Opera Choruses… AND MORE!

Litomyšl Castle

In recognition of America’s 250th anniversary with a powerful program spanning multiple generations of American composers. Works by Copland and former Mead Composer-in-Residence Jessie Montgomery present soaring reflections on the ideals of freedom and equality, Ives salutes his native New England, and Martinů pays tribute to Plymouth Rock, which symbolized the opportunities that America had given him.

Lincoln Portrait & Ellington Harlem

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Few orchestras can currently boast in their dramaturgy an opera premiere by the great Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů. The previously unplayed and unpublished version of the opera Mariken von Nimègue will be a gift for all of us lovers not only of his music. Chief conductor Tomáš Netopil will take over the performance.

Beethoven – Pastoral Symphony

Municipal House

Mahler Strauss Martinů Borodin

Gasteig HP8

Jakub Hrůša conducts three works that connect the specific tonality of Czech music with the language of 20th-century sound: Bohuslav Martinů’s First Symphony, composed in 1942 in American exile, evokes his lost homeland through traditional folk melodies and dance rhythms, while simultaneously celebrating the beginning of a new chapter in his life. The nostalgic Suita rustica by his student Vítězslava Kaprálová is based on folkloric themes, and Josef Suk’s passionate Fantasy for Violin and Orchestra, with Julia Fischer as the soloist, is also unmistakably influenced by Czech music.

A Czech evening with Jakub Hrůša

Berliner Philharmoniker

Violinist Liza Ferschtman (‘00), known for her “laserlike intensity, purity, and refined beauty of playing” (New York Times), and pianist Benjamin Hochman (‘01), celebrated for his “elegant, polished, and heartfelt” playing (Boston Globe), lead a piano quintet ensemble with emerging artists Leah Amory, Davin Mar, and Carson Ling-Efird from Curtis Institute of Music. The program will begin with Bohuslav Martinů’s exuberant Three Madrigals and Beethoven’s “Ghost” piano trio, and close with Brahms’ masterful Piano Quintet in F minor.

Curtis on Tour in Vilagarcía de Arousa, Spain

Municipal Auditorium Vilagarcía de Arousa

Curtis on Tour in Vienna, Austria

University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna

In Nino Rota's "Nonetto," his characteristically sensitive melodic structure and Mediterranean flair combine to create one of the most elegant chamber music works of the entire 20th century. Rota's first version of this piece was created in 1959 – the same year as Bohuslav Martinu°'s Nonet No. 2. Martinu° completed it shortly before his death. His biographer, Harry Halbreich, called it "Martinu°'s chamber music legacy," which, despite its apparent modesty, surpasses almost all of the composer's other works. Here, he said, is a piece of eternal beauty. "As with Mozart's late work," Halbreich summarized, "in this work, the deepest feeling and the wisdom of a lifetime are concealed behind the facade of graceful divertissements and smiling purity of expression."

7. Sunday Matinee

Rathaus der Stadt Frankfurt

Curtis on Tour in Stockholm, Sweden

The Royal Chapel, Stockholm

Curtis on Tour in Bremen, Germany 2026

Die Glocke

Curtis on Tour in Berlin, Germany

Konzerthaus Berlin

Only two of the evening's four composers are actually American, but French Maurice Ravel wrote his piano concerto in the wake of a very successful American tour, and Martinů lived in the United States for a number of years – also when he composed The Rock. The work is a symphonic poem that shows Martinů's fascinating ability to use the rich sound possibilities of the orchestra. Ravel combines several styles in his work – including jazz, but it all ties together, and the piano concerto appears as a divinely beautiful kaleidoscopic journey through timbres and sensual rhythms.

The American composers

Aalborg Central Waterfront

The acclaimed vocal ensemble Gentlemen Singers has accepted an invitation to our special concert in May. In the opening notes of Echos of Folksongs by Leoš Janáček, we can hear the young composer influenced by folk music, his travels in Moravia and his first experiences as a choirmaster.

In stark contrast there are the Brigand Songs commissioned from Bohuslav Martinů at the end of his life by the Prague Teachers’ Choir (I) and the Moravian Teachers’ Choir (II).

For the May concert, Gentlemen Singers, together with the violinist Lucia Fulka Kopsová, will also perform Zdeněk Lukáš’s song cycle Spring is Coming, whose choral works are inspired by folk motifs and are characterized by melodic inventiveness, rhythmic vitality and ability to express strong emotions.

Lukáš. Vičar. Janáček

The Professed House, Prague

Experience the light and lyrical side of the BSO as Principal Oboe Katherine Needleman delights with Martinü’s rarely performed Oboe Concerto. Mendelssohn’s "Scottish" Symphony captures the charm of Scotland, while Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances brings vibrant folk tunes to life.

Mendelssohn & Needleman

Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall

The Music Center at Strathmore

Perfect for curious ears and seasoned listeners alike, this program spins musical tales with a splash of humor. Gernot Wolfgang’s New York Moments paints a jazz-tinged portrait of city life — rhythmic, sleek and full of surprises. Martinů’s cheeky La Revue de Cuisine is a witty, dance-inspired suite drawn from his playful ballet about love and rivalry among kitchen utensils. The evening closes with Brahms’s Piano Trio No. 2, a heartfelt work that anchors the program with a striking balance between light and dark. 

Stories In Sound

Cincinnati Music Hall

No thunderbolts and lightning, maybe, but plenty of kaleidoscopic colour, whirling rhythms and strong flavours as flamboyant Greek-Albanian violinist Jonian Ilias-Kadesha directs a concert dedicated to the gutsy glories of Czech music.

Bohemian Rhapsodies

City Halls

Influenced by Czech folk and expressionism, Haas’s Study for Strings is an energetic, introspective work now seen as a key piece of 20th-century Czech music. Themes of fate, migration and Martinů’s own journey echo through The Rock, reflecting nature, strength, and the enduring human spirit. Dissonance and overlapping melodies define Ives’s Three Places in New England – a bold blend of American folk and modernist experimentation. For our curtain call, Bernstein’s On the Town bursts with energy, fusing classical with popular jazz styles to make a dazzling finale.

Bernstein’s ‘On the Town’

MediaCityUK

Leonard Slatkin is a musical legend: composer and winner of several Grammy Awards and chief conductor of many great orchestras. As a soloist, he requested Czech virtuoso Josef Špaček and Bohuslav Martinů's violin concerto. The Czech premiere of Slatkin's piece Schubertiade will also be performed.

Josef Špaček & Leonard Slatkin

Leigh Barrett is a beloved Boston-based actor, singer and director. Although she received her Bachelor's degree in Voice Performance, opera emphasis, from Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory in Ohio, she has found her home in musical theatre. 

Her very first stage was her parent's living room and every guest got treated to a show. There were costume changes, guest stars (her little sister Sue),  a jump rope microphone, and complicated choreography (the very advanced step, touch, and turn around).

From there she joined her church and high school choirs. And although she didn't really know what a "career" in music or acting was, she followed her best friend to Ohio to major in Music Education. Scared off by a middle school choir and shop class (don't ask), she switched her major to Voice Performance (because that’s not scary!). After graduation, she was cast in Little Shop of Horrors and she knew she had found her place. 

April 11 & 12, 2026

Greenwich High School

“Savor Every Note” as North America’s top violinists and principal players perform works paired to the finest in wine, charcuterie, chocolate and more! Featuring New York Philharmonic concertmaster Frank Huang and principal violist Cynthia Phelps.

Savor Every Note - New York Philharmonic

Fairbanks Ranch Country Club

Welcome to a soup concert featuring flutist Anna Riikonen and cellist Josep Castanyer Alonso of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, who are joined by pianist Peter Friis Johansson – a Swedish Grammy nominee for his album of music by Bo Linde.

Soup with Trio

Stockholm Concert Hall

They convey a "sense of happiness" that "has a doubly soothing effect in these pessimistic times" : this is how the critic-pope Eduard Hanslick once characterized Antonín Dvo ř ák's "Legends," a cycle of poetic miniatures. They were intended as an intimate counterpart to the down-to-earth "Slavonic Dances" and were also a great success. Dvo ř ák's ability to sketch out a story, scene, or atmosphere with just a few strokes seems to have been passed on from him to his compatriots. The younger Bohuslav Martin and the highly talented composer and conductor Vítězslava Kaprálová, who, despite her much too early death, left behind around 50 works and was the first female conductor of the Czech Philharmonic, also mastered the small form.

3rd Loh Concert

Octagonal House

Five composers explore the chamber genre with stunning results, from Saint-Saëns’s spectacular duo for violin and harp, to Ravel’s concerto-like piece for harp, winds, and strings, to Jolivet’s magical, sonorous lamentation. A bountiful cast of artists combines to offer unrivaled sonic and artistic diversity.

Respighi and Ravel

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

While Bohuslav Martinů flirted with jazz, the American Wynton Marsalis devotes himself to it just as much as to classical music and with such success that he has won Grammy Awards in both categories. We will hear a fascinating overlapping of traditions and genres in the Violin Concerto he wrote for the Scottish virtuoso Nicola Benedetti. Cristian Măcelaru will conduct this colourful programme.

Czech Philharmonic • Cristian Măcelaru

Dvořák Hall Rudolfinum

Our principal conductor once praised the "natural quality" of our orchestra, saying that we "never play routinely" and therefore it "never sounds boring." He particularly appreciates our great enthusiasm for discovering the often still unknown music of his homeland, and so we will once again delve with him into the Czech repertoire, which has become irresistible to us – with exciting works such as the "Suita rustica" by Vítězslava Kaprálová, who was not only a highly gifted composer but also the first female conductor of the Czech Philharmonic. She came from Brno but died in exile in France at the young age of 25.

Guest at the Vienna Musikverein

Vienna Music Society

This concert is included in these packages: Fantasy and Fury: Music of the Romantic, Mozart’s Enduring Influence, Maestros and Masterpieces, and Season Sampler.

Recovered Voices: Exploring Czech Masterworks

Colburn School

Brahms’s Third Symphony packs a wide variety of material into four compact, yet passionate movements of stunning depth and emotional sweep. Czech conductor Jakub Hrůša returns to also lead The Cleveland Orchestra in the wartime Third Symphony by his countryman Bohuslav Martinů and the Military Sinfonietta by countrywoman Vítĕzslava Kaprálová, who left a small but remarkable output before her untimely death at age 25.

Brahms’s Third Symphony

Severance Music Center

Chamber music for voice and instruments will be represented in Series I by a grand concert featuring works by Bohuslav Martinů and Jiří Gemrot. The shared theme draws inspiration from Czech traditions, especially those rooted in the Vysočina region. Mikeš of the Mountains is one of several cantatas by Martinů celebrating his native land. Gemrot continues this theme with a piece based on the customs of the region's historic glassmakers.

Czech Chamber Music Society • Martinů Voices

3. Chamber Music in Strausberg – Nonet

Kreismusikschule Märkisch-Oderland

Immerse yourself in the world of timeless music at a concert that offers not only an unforgettable experience but also a remarkable connection between three composers. The energetic and lively Overture for Orchestra H. 345 by Bohuslav Martinů will be played at the beginning. It is replete with melodic inventiveness and fresh optimism.

Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto

Conductors Chorus – Katrina Keat, conductor (Doctoral Recital)

Auer Hall

This chamber music concert spans a wide range from the Baroque to Viennese Classicism and Czech Modernism. Jan Dismas Zelenka and Johann Friedrich Fasch were contemporaries of Johann Sebastian Bach. Zelenka came from Bohemia and worked at the Saxon court in Dresden, while Fasch, from Thuringia, worked briefly in Prague. Ludwig van Beethoven composed his Cello sonata in G minor in Berlin and dedicated it to King Frederick William II of Prussia. The last two works on the program take us back to the Czech Republic. Leoš Janáček’s Pohádka tells the Russian fairy tale of Tsarevich Ivan and Princess Marya in a rhapsodic tone. Bohuslav Martinů initially studied in Prague and moved to Paris in 1923. There he absorbed various musical influences: the esprit of the Groupe des Six, the formal rigor of Igor Stravinsky and the nonchalance of jazz.

4. Chamber Music Concert

Liederhalle Cultural and Congress Center

A top Czech orchestra brings a top Czech programme to Antwerp. The Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, led by the inspiring Alevtina Ioffe, showcases its acclaimed identity with finesse and vision. Joining them is Canadian violinist Timothy Chooi, a Queen Elisabeth Competition laureate and one of the most exciting talents of his generation. Martinů’s lively Overture sets the tone, followed by Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, a masterpiece of breathtaking melodies. The evening concludes with Bohemian flair: Dvořák’s intimate Romance in F minor leads seamlessly into his grand Symphony No. 8, where Czech folk music bursts with energy and authenticity.

Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra

Queen Elisabeth Hall

In the 20th century, the nations of Central Europe experienced both glory and terror – and composers responded with music that blazes with energy and imaginative power. For LPO Principal Conductor Edward Gardner, it’s a source of pure inspiration, and tonight, in the first of two Phoenix Lands concerts, he shares his passion. Janáček retells bloody folktales, Grażyna Bacewicz strikes a note of defiance, and Lutosławski and Martinů each do their own deliriously imaginative thing. These composers have a thousand tales to tell, and with the aid of the superb young Czech violinist Josef Špaček, their story starts here.

Southbank Centre

Duos and Trios

Chamber Music Palisades

Violin virtuoso Jiří Vodička, Prague Spring Festival winner in cello Václav Petr and fantastic pianist Martin Kasík founded the chamber ensemble The Trio in 2020 and in the first year created a great audiovisual recording of Bohuslav Martinů's Bergerettes.

The Trio

Church of Saints Simon and Jude

Curiosities

Bochumer Symphoniker

From introspection to exhilaration, experience a rich tapestry of chamber music that bridges centuries and styles. The concert opens with J.S. Bach’s iconic Chaconne, arranged for two cellos — a powerful transformation of a solo Baroque classic into a rich dialogue. Martinů’s String Quartet No. 4 follows, bursting with rhythmic drive and modern energy. The evening concludes with Ravel’s mesmerizing Piano Trio, a dazzling display of color, nuance and French impressionism. 

Baroque And Beyond

The British cellist Raphael Wallfisch, son of Holocaust survivor and cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, performs with pianist Simon Callaghan in major works by composers of diverse musical backgrounds and approaches who were caught up in the suffering and upheaval of the Second World War.

Raphael Wallfisch: Composers in Exile

Martinů and Mozart

Downtown Ithaca Alliance (The Ithaca Commons)

The Pavel Haas Quartet from Prague is one of Europe’s leading string quartets, with a particular focus on Czech and Slovak music. This concert features an all-Czech programme.

Each season, the Czech Chamber Music Society introduces its audience to the brightest rising stars—winners of prestigious competitions held over the past year. Who will take the spotlight this time remains to be seen; the coming months will reveal all.

Czech Chamber Music Society • Concert of competition winners

Music and Dance Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague

Finnish composer Ida Moberg’s Sunrise vividly portrays the sun’s morning ascent, setting a serene yet dynamic tone. Haydn’s Symphony No. 39, Storm at Sea, contrasts erratic bursts with sudden silences, blending Sturm und Drang with Romantic foreshadowing. Dvořák’s Seventh Symphony shifts between drama and lightness, while Martinů’s Rhapsody Concerto combines Romantic warmth with lyrical elegance. The spotlight falls on violist Antoine Tamestit, whose artistry brings Martinů’s effervescent concerto to life alongside the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra.

The sound of the Czech Republic with Antoine Tamestit

Music Center De Bijloke

Between his performances of The Well-Tempered Clavier, this season’s curator Mahan Esfahani will make room to honour his reputation as a bold musical explorer. In a thoughtfully assembled programme, he brings together Czech and international works of the 20th-century — paying tribute to Viktor Kalabis and shining a light on the inventive, though lesser-known, Henry Cowell. The evening’s climax will be Falla’s Harpsichord Concerto, interpreted by some of the Czech Republic’s finest musicians.

Czech Chamber Music Society • Mahan Esfahani

Our principal conductor once praised the "natural quality" of our orchestra, saying that we "never play routinely" and therefore it "never sounds boring." He particularly appreciates our great enthusiasm for discovering the often still unknown music of his homeland, and so we will once again delve with him into the Czech repertoire, which has become irresistible to us – with exciting works such as the "Suita rustica" by Vítězslava Kaprálová, who was not only a highly gifted composer but also the first female conductor of the Czech Philharmonic. She came from Brno but died in exile in France at the young age of 25. In 1938, she wrote her impressive suite, inspired by the folklore of her homeland, which we will present with great joy and energy. 

Jakub Hrůša, Julia Hagen

Bamberger Symphoniker

“A passion for musical discovery”— that is what the members of L’Armonia Terrena say unites them. What this ensemble has uncovered in the contrasting musical worlds of Haydn, Ravel and Martinů will be revealed in largest instrumental group performance to take place during this season’s matinee series. The ensemble will be led by Zdeněk Klauda, with Czech Philharmonic cellist Eduard Šístek appearing as soloist.

Czech Chamber Music Society • L'Armonia Terrena

Mixed instrumental ensembles—from quartets to nonets—perform a diverse range of chamber works from the 20th and 21st centuries.

Color & Light

Alice Pratt Brown Hall

Since 2010, chamber music ensembles of the Staatskapelle have been performing at the Bode Museum, a jewel of Berlin's museum landscape. Matinee concerts lasting just over an hour in the Gobelin Hall, with diverse programs that include music from the Baroque and Classical periods as well as works from the Romantic and Modern periods, can easily lead into further hours in the museum—for example, with a guided tour of the exhibition and the "Artwork of the Day," a private tour, or a culinary finale in the stylish museum café.

Museum Concert II

UNESCO Weltkulturerbe Museumsinsel

The third chamber music concert will focus on a lesser known musical form presented less often at chamber music evenings, namely the piano quartet. The concert program consists of three seminal pieces in this genre by the most qualified composers Antonín Dvořák, Robert Schumann and Bohuslav Martinů.

Schumann. Martinů. Dvořák

The dynamic duo of violinist Adam Millstein and pianist Dominic Cheli performs works by innovative composers who profoundly impacted the trajectory of 20th-century music.

Adam Millstein & Dominic Cheli

The dynamic duo of violinist Adam Millstein and pianist Dominic Cheli performs works by innovative composers who profoundly impacted the trajectory of 20th-century music. 

The dynamic duo of violinist Adam Millstein and pianist Dominic Cheli performs works by innovative composers who profoundly impacted the trajectory of 20th-century music.

Recovered Voices: Adam Millstein, Violin and Dominic Cheli, Piano

Famous for its passionate and tempestuous sound, the Pavel Haas Quartet is primarily dedicated to the rich repertoire of its native Czech lands. In this concert, they bring together three string quartets from the 1930s that not only tell a tragic love story but also demonstrate the diversity of the musical landscape of the time.

Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

We open this program with a piece by a Lebanese composer, Houtaf Khoury. He studied in Tripoli, Lebanon, and in Kiev, Ukraine. He has composed five symphonies, several concertos for various instruments, as well as chamber and solo music. What you are about to hear is a touching, beautiful, rich, and honest work called The Journey. It is scored for solo violin and strings. It is a magical work that will feature our concertmaster, Roger Wilkie, on solo violin.

Beethoven & Beyond

Terrace Theater, Long Beach Performing Arts Center

Revue pour six

Werksviertel-Mitte

This high-octane program celebrates the magnetic style of Tony Award-winning choreographer Justin Peck—where ballet meets pop, pattern and pulse.

Peck: Miami in Motion

Ziff Ballet Opera House

Bratislava Music Festival: The Epic of Gilgamesh

Slovak Philharmonic

Our tribute to Robert and Clara Schumann culminates in a concert featuring works by both spouses. Clara Wieck-Schumann was a pioneering pianist—one of the first to perform from memory—and a gifted composer, balancing her artistry with raising eight children. Robert, an accomplished composer, writer, and pianist, damaged his hands through obsessive technical practice.

From the opening notes of Clara’s Piano Concerto, the deep connection between them is unmistakable—a bond unmatched in the 19th century. Robert’s Cello Concerto, no less moving and contemplative, seems to call out Clara’s name in the final movement’s intervals, according to cellist Mischa Maisky. This music unfolds like a personal film, with the cello’s lyrical voice and the orchestra’s rich palette painting vivid scenes.

Dvořákova Praha: A Tribute to the Schumanns & Gilgamesh

The opening concert of the Chamber Music Series will present an unusual program with an unusual instrumentation. The world-renowned Zemlinsky Quartet will be complemented by oboe, clarinet and double bass, which forms the basis of folk music. Symbolically, the concert will also feature Franz Schubert’s String Quartet No. 15 in G major, Op. 161, which was composed in 1826 and is one of Schubert’s masterpieces.

Milhaud. Martinů. Schubert

St. Wenceslas Music Festival: Mahan Esfahani & Prague Philharmonia

Kostel Sv. Cyrila a Metoděje

Although he established no stylistic school, we find Martinů’s methods reflected in the work of other composers. This program pairs two of his chamber works with those of his peers and successors.

Program Ten • Martinů’s Legacy

Fisher Center at Bard

Many consider Martinů’s eighth opera to be his finest work. Based, like Ariane, on a French play by Georges Neveux, Julietta is a surreal psychological drama that explores the intersection of dreams and reality. In 2019, Leon Botstein helmed the opera’s overdue American premiere at Carnegie Hall, where he led “a winning cast and the American Symphony Orchestra in a vibrant concert performance” that was selected as a “Critic’s Pick” by The New York Times. Now, the Festival presents the conductor and ASO in a semi-staged revival of the opera, featuring three members of that same winning cast: tenor Aaron Blake and bass-baritones Philip Cokorinos and Alfred Walker, who also appears in this year’s mainstage SummerScape opera. So too does soprano Erica Petrocelli, who headlines Julietta, lending her “searing intensity” (Los Angeles Times) to the opera’s title role. Anchored by Botstein and the ASO, their performance draws the Bard Music Festival—and all seven weeks of Bard SummerScape—to a gripping close.

Bard Music Festival — Program 11

Sosnoff Theater

This program comprises choral and orchestral music by Martinů and perhaps his finest student, Moravia’s Jan Novák. Set to his own Latin text, Novák’s moving cantata Ignis pro Ioanne Palach commemorates a desperate young activist who immolated himself to protest the end of the Prague Spring. As a former professional violinist, Martinů wrote for the instrument with intimate understanding, and his Second Violin Concerto stands among his mature masterpieces. It was commissioned by the great Mischa Elman, who premiered the work with Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony, before performing it for many years, as did Isaac Stern and Josef Suk. Completing the program are an aria from Martinů’s one-act opera Ariane, a surrealist take on the Theseus myth that was inspired by Maria Callas, and The Epic of Gilgamesh, the composer’s only large-scale oratorio. Scored for narrator, soloists, choir, and orchestra, this takes its text from an English translation of the Mesopotamian saga, and is notable for some of Martinů’s most inspired choral writing.

Bard Music Festival — Program 9

This program celebrates Martinů’s gift for synthesizing the old and the new. Named for Renaissance part-songs and inspired by Mozart, the First Duo from his “Three Madrigals” is nonetheless contemporary in its idioms; his lyrical Third Cello Sonata features both traditional and progressive harmonies; and his Second Nonet, composed in his final months, finds fresh colors and textures within its neoclassical form. These will be heard alongside mid-century chamber works by two of Martinů’s younger contemporaries. David Diamond, a friend and colleague whom he had known in Paris, is represented by the energetic and tonally centered Quintet for flute, piano, and strings. By contrast, the Évocations de Slovaquie by Pulitzer Prize laureate Karel Husa—another Czech who settled in France before emigrating to the States—is already atonal and forward-looking, despite dating from the composer’s Paris years between the wars.

Program Eight • Tradition and Innovation

The Festival’s second all-Martinů event opens with one of the composer’s greatest choral works. A Czech-language cantata written to honor the Czech volunteers who fought in the French army, Martinů’s Field Mass had him blacklisted by the Nazis. Set to texts by Jiří Mucha, passages from Bohemian folk poetry, and lines from psalms and the liturgy, this powerful anti-war protest anticipates such later works as Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem and Leonard Bernstein’s MASS. Folk poetry is also the basis for Martinů’s Brigand Songs, which use Moravian tales of feudal tyranny to address the Soviet invasion of Hungary. The program concludes with the world premiere of the original French version of Martinů’s one-act opera Mariken de Nimègue (“Mary of Nijmegen”). Based on a medieval Dutch miracle play, and better-known in the later Czech version for which he won the Czechoslovak State Prize for Composition, Martinů’s original is set to French text by Henri Ghéon and features different orchestration as well as extensive original musical material that has never previously been published or performed.

Program Seven • Faith and Folklore

Like Martinů, both Arthur Honegger and Aaron Copland achieved prominence in Paris between the wars, and all three subsequently taught under Serge Koussevitzky’s auspices at Tanglewood. This program juxtaposes Honegger’s sparkling Concerto da camera and Copland’s introspective Sextet with four of Martinů’s own compositions: the witty ballet La revue de cuisine, which casts its dancers as kitchen utensils and uses the Charleston, tango, foxtrot, and Dixieland jazz to satirical effect; the dazzling Harpsichord Concerto, a work first premiered by Kaprálová; the freely contrapuntal Tre ricercari, which draws on 18th-century models; and the First Piano Sonata, a late work characterized by its bold harmonies and freedom of rhythm and form.

Program Five • From Paris to New York

In this thoughtfully curated concert with commentary, scholars-in-residence Michael Beckerman and Aleš Březina present chamber works by Martinů and his gifted composition student Vítězslava Kaprálová, with whom he was in love.

Program Four • Martinů’s Distinctive Voice

Martinů came of age as a composer in the musical melting pot of Paris, where his Czech influences would absorb more international ones. This program examines the worlds that shaped him, contextualizing the composer among his teachers and peers. These include Jaroslav Řídký, with whom he had played in the Czech Philharmonic, and their teacher Josef Suk, whose youthful yet confident First Piano Quartet is dedicated to Suk’s own teacher (and soon-to-be father-in-law), Antonín Dvořák. Two of Martinů’s earliest Parisian works—the ragtimey Foxtrot and assured First Piano Trio—will be heard alongside chamber works by his teacher Albert Roussel, one of the most prominent French composers of the interwar years; the Polish émigré Alexandre Tansman, like Martinů a leading light of the so-called École de Paris; and their elder luminary Maurice Ravel, whose writing would influence the Czech composer’s string quartets.

Program Two • The French Connection

Martinů’s life was upended by the Nazi invasion, but his compatriot Erwin Schulhoff, a Jewish Communist, suffered the worse fate of dying in a concentration camp. Drawing on influences from neoclassicism to jazz, Schulhoff’s commanding Second Symphony opens this program, the festival’s first all-orchestral concert.

Program Three • Music and Freedom

Harnessing Bard’s unusual ability to integrate orchestral, vocal, and chamber works within a single event, this Opening Night Celebration is the first of three programs devoted exclusively to Martinů’s own music.

Composer

Bohuslav Martinů

Events

Upcoming events

24 - 26 Sep, 2026

Brahms’s Second Symphony · The Cleveland Orchestra

9 - 11 Oct, 2026

Mälkki Conducts Bartók · Los Angeles Philharmonic

Oct 10, 2026

Bratislava, Slovakia · The Cleveland Orchestra

Oct 13, 2026

Budapest, Hungary · The Cleveland Orchestra

15 - 17 Oct, 2026

Vienna, Austria · The Cleveland Orchestra

Past events

Sep 20, 2026

Sunday Chamber Music – 1 · Budapest Festival Orchestra

9 - 10 Sep, 2026

Dark tales and dances · Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra

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