News: The Concentus Moraviae Festival Begins Advanced Ticket Sales

23 February 2017, 3:00
News: The Concentus Moraviae Festival Begins Advanced Ticket Sales

Today advanced sales began for the Concentus Moraviae festival. The programme for the 22nd year of the festival has been prepared by Václav Luks. The starting point for its programme, focused on the human voice, is the 450th anniversary of the birth of Claudio Monteverdi.

In 19 towns and cities in South Moravia, the Czech-Moravian Highlands and Lower Austria between 3 and 29 June 2017 thirty-three concerts will take place, with performances from more than a hundred vocalists. These will include the top Czech performers of ancient music in a varied pre-Baroque and Baroque programme, and the composition of invited European ensembles performing medieval and Renaissance music will be exceptionally representative. Listeners will be taken on trips to far corners of Europe, hearing northern melodies, the fascinating sound of Mediterranean chorales and Portuguese Fado. The resident artist of the festival will be Marco Mencoboni, an Italian harpsichordist, conductor and artistic director of the ensemble Cantar Lontano, which will perform in several projects and will hold in Brno a workshop for vocalists. For 11 concerts public transport from Brno will be organised. Detailed information is available on the festival website. Tickets can be purchased here.

Marco Mencoboni/ photo festival archive

On Saturday, 24 August, the Korean radio orchestra KBS Symphony Orchestra with its musical director - Finnish conductor and violinist Pietari Inkinen - came to Brno's Špilberk Festival with an exclusively romantic repertoire. The invitation was also accepted by South Korean violinist Bomsori Kim, a graduate of the prestigious Julliard School.  more

For a quarter of a century now, the Brno Philharmonic has been organising the Špilberk Festival at the end of August in the courtyard of the castle of the same name. Four open-air musical evenings offer the audience a selection of concerts featuring classical, film and computer music, as well as often jazz and other genres. This makes it a diverse mix of performers and repertoires with an often pleasant, summery, laid-back ambience. This year's big and rapdily sold-out attraction was the Wednesday evening of 21 August, full of melodies from the James Bond films, performed by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, headed by world-renowned conductor, composer and arranger Steven Mercurio. During the concert, the audience also got to enjoy singers Sara MilfajtováVendula Příhodová and David Krausmore

As part of its European tour, the Taiwanese Taipei Philharmonic Chamber Choir (TPCC), under the direction of artistic director and choirmaster Dr. YuChung Johnny Ku, took the city up on its invitation and visited Brno. The concert was held on Monday, 13th August in the hall of the newly renovated Passage Hotel.  more

The final concert of this year's season of the Brno Philharmonic was devoted to works by Antonín Dvořák and Jean Sibelius at the Janáček Theatre. On Thursday, 20 June, Danish conductor Michael Schønwandt, who had not appeared before a Brno audience since January last year, took the lead of the Philharmonic. In the first half of the programme, the orchestra was accompanied by violinist Alexander Sitkovetskymore

In the spirit of the idea that Brno and folklore belong together, the Folklore Ensemble Happening of the Year took place on Thursday 6 June. The event was organised by the Brno UNESCO City of Music Office in cooperation with the Brno Dances and Sings association. The event thus became part of a long-term project that set out to map the amateur music scene in Brno, and not only folk music. Last year Brno City of Music reached out to choirs in a similar way, and in the future will host garage bands and more. This just goes to prove the diversity of Brno's music scene, not only as regards professional ensembles, but also enthusiastic amateurs for whom music is an inseparable part of their lives.  more