Chamber music is the noblest performing discipline. It is enormously difficult to develop the ability to listen to one’s musical colleagues, to react to their breathing, to perceive time and sound, and at the same time to build consensus for one’s own musical ideas, and that is why chamber ensembles need a lot of time for the players to become accustomed to each other. It is said that whoever has not gone through playing chamber music is not a complete musician.

This will again be proven by chamber music masterclasses led by three members of the Vienna Philharmonic, violinists Milan Šetena and Martin Kubik and cellist Edison Pashko. For the classes, they have selected works for different combinations of instruments – Dvořák’s String Quartet No. 10 in E flat major, Brahms’s String Quintet No. 2 in G major, and a Schulhoff’s String Sextet for two violins, two violas, and two cellos. And since, as we have said, chamber music takes time, the masterclasses will be spread over several days, climaxing on 23 September 2024 with an appearance by the individual ensembles at a concert at The Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.

Those interested in active participation can apply by sending a CV (max. 900 characters) to the email address stehlikova@dvorakovapraha.cz by 31 July 2023. The age limit for participants is 28.

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 auxiliary programme in the series For the Future, it gives young musicians the chance to play before exceptional artists and to consult on their views on the interpretation of a work with performers who have invaluable experience on the world’s great stages. 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 gives an exciting insight into the final phase of a young artist’s preparation before the moment when her or she appears in the concert arena with a finished interpretive conception in order to share an artistic opinion with the public.

Milan Šetena was born in Prague, where he began violin lessons at a very early age.

He studied with Bedřich Čapek from 1974 to 1982 and with František Pospíšil at the Prague Conservatory from 1982 to 1988. As a student, he was appointed as the first-ever concertmaster of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra under Claudio Abbado in 1987, the year it was formed.

Milan Šetena moved to Vienna in 1988, where he continued his studies with Professor Alfred Staar. In 1990, he was engaged as a first violinist of the Vienna State Opera, and in 1994, he became a member of the Vienna Philharmonic.

In addition to the VPO, Milan performs with the Kammerorchester Wien-Berlin, Wiener Virtuosen, the Wiener Geigen Quartet, the Schulhoff Quartet, and the Antonín Dvořák Piano Quartet, with whom he has participated in numerous CD recordings and performed at renowned international festivals, such as the Salzburg Festival, Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, Festival Mitte Europa, and The Stars of the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg. Moreover, Milan has appeared as a soloist at numerous concerts in Austria and abroad.

In 2009, he recorded a CD titled Wiener Romanzen with his long-standing piano partner, Maria Vigilante. Along with Rainer Honeck, the concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Milan appeared as a soloist on a CD in the "Precious Music" series of the Österreichische Nationalbank. In 2012, Milan recorded another CD in this series, this time as a soloist in his own right.

As well as his activities as an orchestral, chamber, and solo musician, Milan Šetena is also a chamber music coach. In January 2012, he served on the jury of the Concertino Praga International Chamber Music Competition, and in June 2014, he was a panelist for the A. Dvořák International Chamber Music Competition.

In May 2019, Milan Šetena was awarded the title of professor by Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen.

In the summers of 2020, 2022, and 2023, Milan initiated and subsequently became the Artistic Director of the highly successful International Music Masterclasses Slavonice (www.immcslavonice.com).

Milan Šetena plays a violin by Sanctus Seraphin, Venice (1733), on loan from the Austrian Nationalbank’s collection.

source: Milan Šetena

The Bohuslav Martinů Concert Hall is part of the historic Liechtenstein Palace, which is located directly opposite St Nicholas’s Church at the upper end of Malostranské náměstí (Lesser Town Square). With capacity for an audience of 200, it is used primarily for more intimate cultural events and for graduation recitals. Since 1993, the Liechtenstein Palace has been the site of the Music and Dance Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.