Programme

Required Repertoire

Johann Sebastian Bach: Sonatas and Partitas for violin solo

Johannes Brahms: Sonatas for violin & piano

Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich: violin concerti

Those interested in active participation can apply by sending a CV (max. 900 characters) to the email address stehlikova@dvorakovapraha.cz no later than by 31 July 2021. The age limit for participants is 25.

 

Public masterclasses are yet another way that the Academy of Classical Music at the Dvořák Prague Festival is working to promote the education of musicians. As an ancillary programme in the series, For the Future, young musicians are given the chance to play before exceptional artists, performers who have invaluable experience on the world’s great stages, and to consult them about their views on the interpretation of a work. A masterclass is a unique opportunity for the public to witness the final phase of preparing an interpretation. Rather than a usual lesson, it is an exchange of artistic opinions. It provides exciting insight into the final phase of a young artist’s preparation, before the moment when that performer appears in the concert arena with a finished interpretive conception, in order to share an artistic opinion with the public.

The mentors at this year’s masterclasses will be important figures from the current festival. Their undoubted authority can influence the future course of musical thinking among the rising generation of performers.Leading young violinists through selected violin works on 16 Sept. 2021 at 10 a.m. in the Rudolfinum’s Suk Hall will be the phenomenal violinist and teacher Dmitry Sitkovetsky, the first winner in the history of the Concertino Praga competition. He is also chairman of the jury for the finals of this year’s competition.

Performers

Dmitry Sitkovetsky

A renaissance man and a magnetic creative force, Dmitry Sitkovetsky is recognised throughout the world as having made a considerable impact on every aspect of musical life. A prolific recording artist, with a career spanning more than four decades, he is celebrated globally as a violinist, conductor, creator, transcriber, and facilitator – and holds an undisputed and venerable position in musical society as a giant personality and educator.

As violinist and/or guest conductor, the 2022–2023 season and beyond sees Sitkovetsky perform extensively throughout Europe and North America. He performs chamber music at the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival and conducts the Israel Jerusalem Camerata in Israel; plays at the Guadalajara Chamber Music Festival and conducts the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional in Mexico; and is featured in concerts in Berlin, Germany; Mexico City, Mexico; Bucharest, Romania; Havana, Cuba; Istanbul, Turkey; Baku, Azerbaijan; and Sofia, Bulgaria. Sitkovetsky is also the President of the jury of the George Enescu International Violin Competition in Romania and a member of jury at the International Fritz Kreisler Violin Competition in Austria and the Concours Musical International de Montréal in Canada. In summer 2023, he performs in the Verbier Festival’s 30th anniversary season.

Siktovetsky also leads his final and 20th season as Music Director of the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra in North Carolina. Throughout the past two decades at the helm of the orchestra, Sitkovetsky curated more than 120 different orchestral programs from Bach to Brubeck with world-class soloists. Among his many accomplishments, he developed the Rice Toyota Presents “Sitkovetsky & Friends” chamber series, consulted on the biggest installation of the Meyer System in the U.S. in the new 3000-seat Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts, and commissioned important new works by composers such as such as Jakov Jakoulov and Mark Engebretson. The 2022–2023 GSO season features Sitkovetsky leading six Masterworks concerts with acclaimed soloists including Michelle Cann, Sergey Antonov, James Ehnes, Trio Zimbalist, and Branford Marsalis.

Sitkovetsky also enjoys a flourishing career as a conductor, having worked with such orchestras as Academy of St-Martin-In-The-Fields, Dallas Symphony, London Philharmonic, Orchestre de chambre de Paris, Lucerne Symphony, Orchestra della Toscana, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Shanghai Symphony, and Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, Japan Century Symphony, amongst others. In 1990, he founded the New European Strings Chamber Orchestra (NES) – bringing together the most distinguished string players from the top European ensembles, from both Russian and Western musical backgrounds (reflecting Dmitry’s own life story). Since 2003, Sitkovetsky has served as the Music Director of the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, North Carolina, to whom he has brought such soloists as Emmanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Garrick Ohlsson, and Pinchas Zukerman. Previous positions of artistic leadership have included the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y Leon (Artist in Residence, 2006–2009), Russian State Symphony Orchestra ‘Evgeny Svetlanov’ (Principal Guest Conductor, 2002–2005), and the Ulster Orchestra (Principal Conductor & Artistic Advisor, 1996–2001).

In 2019, he celebrated the release of a recital disc on the Melodia label, recorded with Tchaikovsky Competition-winner Lukas Geniušas – with a programme designed as an homage to the legendary duo of Fritz Kreisler and Sergei Rachmaninov. His celebrated career as a violinist is documented in an extensive discography of more than 40 recordings, reflecting the impressive breadth of his repertoire. His recording collaborators to date include such orchestras as the London Symphony, Philharmonia, and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, working with such legendary maestros as Sir Colin Davis, Mariss Jansons, Sir Neville Marriner, and Yehudi Menuhin. As soloist, he has performed with the world’s leading orchestras – including the Berlin Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland, LA Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus, New York Philharmonic, NHK Symphony, and Philadelphia, amongst others.

Given his unmatched ability to turn any project into a highly anticipated artistic event, Sitkovetsky has also been invited to create, develop and lead a number of festivals, including the Korsholm Music Festival, Finland (1983–1993, and 2002), the Seattle International Music Festival (1992–1997), the Silk Route of Music, Azerbaijan (1999), and the Festival del Sole, Tuscany (2003–2006). During his tenure at the Korsholm Festival, he hosted Alfred Schnittke, Krszystof Penderecki & Rodion Shchedrin as composer-in-residence, performed with such luminaries as Martha Argerich, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Evgeny Kissin, Mischa Maisky to name but a few.

Sitkovetsky is also in high demand as a jury member, musical expert and educator. Recent jury roles have included the Indianapolis International Violin Competition, Concours Musical International de Montréal, International Tchaikovsky Competition, and the Enescu Violin Competition. Additional highlights include Sitkovetsky’s debut TEDx talk, The Power of Curiosity; the launch of his first book, Dmitry Sitkovetsky: Dialogues; and his interview series on Medici.tv, It Ain’t Necessarily So.

Dmitry Sitkovetsky’s name has also become synonymous with the art of transcription. His iconic orchestral and string trio versions of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations have taken on a life of their own – enjoying regular performances and acclaimed recordings by many of the leading performers of today. Following this unprecedented success, Sitkovetsky has gone on to arrange over six60ty works of major repertoire by such composers as Bartók, Beethoven, Brahms, Haydn, Schnittke, and Shostakovich. In 2015, he unveiled his transcription of Stravinsky’s Le baiser de la fée, commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and premiered by Augustin Hadelich at Carnegie Hall. The 2017/2018 season saw the successful premieres of a new multi-genre/multimedia work, Devil, Soldier & Violin (inspired by Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale), with sold-out performances across Russia. Summer 2018 saw the world premiere of Sitkovetsky’s transcription of Sarasate’s Navarra Fantasy, commissioned by the Verbier Festival. This performance – marking the festival’s 25th anniversary – was broadcast live worldwide on Medici.tv, with an all-star lineup of musicians, including Lisa Batiashvili, Leonidas Kavakos, Mischa Maisky, Vadim Repin, Maxim Vengerov, Tabea Zimmermann, and Pinchas Zukerman – as well as Dmitry Sitkovetsky himself. The latest transcription, Bukovina Songs/Preludes by Leonid Desyatnikov, was recorded online by the NES during the Pandemic, and reached an audience of more than 250,000, is now much in demand and has been performed in Bucharest, Oviedo, Ljubljana, Baku, Korsholm, and Jerusalem.

Stanislav Gallin

TBA

Place

Rudolfinum, Suk Hall

Suk Hall is the newest hall in the Neo-Renaissance Rudolfinum. It was created from 1940 to 1942 during modifications of the adjacent Dvořák Hall, as a smaller concert hall. In designing the interior decor architects Antonín Engel and Bohumír Kozák took inspiration from the original style of the Rudolfinum’s architects Josef Zítek and Josef Schulz, thus Suk Hall fits perfectly into the original composition of the building. During the most recent modifications in 2015, according to a design by architect Petr Hrůša, the acoustics of the hall and its connection to the Rudolfinum’s atrium were improved while respecting the historical value of these premises, protected as a historical landmark. Suk Hall has a new grand piano and continues to be intended mainly for performances of chamber music.