Czech Philharmonic ⬩ Velvet Revolution Concerts

For several years, we have been thinking about a special concert that would decorate our concert season and would also commemorate an important date in the history of this country. The holiday of Saint Wenceslas came to mind, as did the date of the founding of Czechoslovakia as an independent state, and Struggle for Freedom and Democracy Day. The Saint Wenceslas holiday is in September, right at the time of the Dvořák Prague Festival, and the October commemoration of the founding of Czechoslovakia is already connected with a number of official public events. For the Czech Philharmonic, however, the last of the three, 17^th of November, is also a holiday with immanent ties to the orchestra’s history.

Above all, we wanted to create a tradition of concerts that would provide an artistic experience of depth and would be a truly special musical event. The programme would always be connected with the theme of freedom expressed in music. Taking the baton for the first three years will be exceptional conductors Semyon Bychkov, Jakub Hrůša, and Sir Simon Rattle. The soloists will also be special, you will learn their names when the new seasons are announced. For the first year, however, we have chosen a purely orchestral programme, reflecting the history of our orchestra and the personal relationship of Chief Conductor Semyon Bychkov with Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, which was written in the conductor’s home town, Leningrad. In recent years, Kabeláč’s masterful passacaglia has begun to appear on the programmes of top orchestras around the world and Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony is an embodiment of perhaps the greatest victory of the human spirit and of unbroken desire for freedom in all of music history.