Czech Philharmonic
Semyon Bychkov, Chief Conductor & Music Director
STREAMED LIVE FROM PRAGUE THIS FEBRUARY
Thursday 4 February with Katia & Marielle Labèque, 7pm GMT
Saturday 20 February with Czech Student Philharmonic, 7.15pm GMT
Available via Czech Philharmonic Facebook and on demand for 7 days
With its national and international audiences building steadily, the Czech Philharmonic will present the first of its own live-streamed concerts on Facebook on Thursday 4 February. Conducted by Chief Conductor and Music Director Semyon Bychkov, the concert will feature Bryce Dessner’s Concerto for Two Pianos performed by Katia and Marielle Labèque for whom it was written and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 Scottish. The concert will also be streamed live on Classic FM’s Facebook page.
The second of the two concerts, on Saturday 20 February, will mark the first collaboration between Bychkov and the Czech Student Philharmonic: “The desire to share music with the younger generation of musicians has been with me ever since the 1970’s when I led the Mannes College of Music Orchestra in New York. As they discover the repertoire and confront its challenges, the intensity of their feeling and the realisation of music’s value in life are extremely palpable. They have no preconceived idea of traditions, they have no habits or reflexes. They are instinctive and receptive. They are a fertile soil to be planted and cultivated.”
Live broadcast and streamed on Facebook in collaboration with Czech TV, following the first half of the concert conducted by Marko Ivanović, Bychkov and the students will present the Overtures to Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Verdi’s La forza del destino together with the First Movement of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with soloist Tom Borrow.
While lockdown restrictions remain in place in the Czech Republic audiences are not permitted in the Rudolfinum. However, thanks to rigorous testing and flexible artistic programming, the Czech Philharmonic has continued to find ways to make music. This week (25-29 January), recording sessions of Smetana’s Má vlast with Bychkovreplace the originally planned concerts. Bychkov first conducted the Orchestra in the iconic work in October 2019 and in November 2020 chose Má vlast to open a new annual concert series presented to commemorate the Velvet Revolution of 1989. The performance was seen live on Czech TV and will be available in 4K on Mezzo TV later this year.
In 2020, the Czech Philharmonic presented 11 concert streams watched by over 660,000 people on Czech TV and 1.5 million internationally via Facebook. In addition to the Velvet Revolution concert and four Advent concerts presented at the end of the year, the Czech Philharmonic organised and streamed four benefit concerts – in collaboration with Czech TV, Czech Savings Bank (Česká spořitelna) and Škoda Auto – raising funds for hospitals, the charity ŽIVOT 90, the People in Need Foundation (Člověk v tísni) and World Blood Donor Day.