Tours and Festivals

The year was 1946, and the very first Prague Spring international festival of classical music was taking place in Prague. The world-famous conductor Rafael Kubelík took the initiative in establishing the festival, and Dr. Edvard Beneš served as the festival patron, establishing a tradition that continues to this day.

The national Smetana Litomyšl Festival is a partner festival of the Czech Philharmonic, and the leading Czech orchestra brings major concert programmes here each year. This time, the three evening concerts will be divided between the orchestra’s principal guest conductors Jakub Hrůša and Tomáš Netopil.

In June, the Czech Philharmonic will bring to Dresden a programme consisting entirely of works by Bedřich Smetana. At the traditional Dresdner Musikfestspiele, the orchestra will play under the direction of its guest conductor Jakub Hrůša.

As summer ends, the Czech Philharmonic always heads for festivals. The two evenings at the BBC Proms will certainly be the highpoint, but the orchestra is also performing in Hamburg, or Lucerne. Principal guest conductor Jakub Hrůša will take the podium joined by the cellists Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Anastasia Kobekina or the pianist Mao Fujita.

Concerts by the Czech Philharmonic at the Dvořák Prague Festival are already a tradition. On this occasion, the first Czech orchestra tries to bring original dramaturgy and unusual artists to its home Rudolfinum. This year's three concerts will include works that pay tribute to the past and the classics, as well as to the present and technology.

The Czech Philharmonic will go to Bratislava right after the opening concerts of its 129th season. The audience at Reduta concert hall will hear a reprise of the festive programme conceived by the orchestra’s chief conductor Semyon Bychkov. The concert begins with the Russian virtuoso Daniil Trifonov in Dvořák’s Piano Concerto.

The Czech Philharmonic's participation in a joint project with the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has taken several forms in recent years. This year the orchestra will visit the spa town with a purely Czech programme consisting of works by Dvořák, Smetana and Janáček. All this under the baton of the chief conductor Semyon Bychkov.

The highpoint of the Czech Philharmonic’s 129th season will be three concerts on one of the world’s most prestigious stages—New York’s Carnegie Hall. Under the baton of its chief conductor Semyon Bychkov, the orchestra is returning for three concerts at the famed hall for the first time since 2018. Then they head to Toronto for two concerts.

To Canada straight from New York. Two concerts await us at Toronto's Koerner Hall, with a dramaturgy consisting mainly of Czech composers - Dvořák, Smetana - but the highlight will be the performance of Mahler's Fifth. Concertmaster Jan Mráček and 129th Season Artist-in-Residence Daniil Trifonov will take the solo parts.

The Czech Philharmonic’s spring tour of Europe is marked by residencies. That will be the case at the Musikverein in Vienna, London’s Barbican, and the Philharmonie de Paris. Besides those three stellar venues, the orchestra will also visit the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the hall with the same name in Bruges.

To Germany we are taking Smetana's Má vlast. In March 2024, the Czech Philharmonic togheter with Pentatone released a recording of this extraordinary composition. The new setting of one of the most important works of Czech cultural history is receiving praise from critics all over the world. Will it be a the same in Hannover and Baden-Baden?

The Smetana Litomyšl Festival is the second oldest music festival in the Czech Republic and one of the largest regularly scheduled classical music festivals in the Czech Republic. The Czech Philharmonic Orchestra will open the 66th year with a celebratory concert under the baton of conductor Jakub Hrůša.

Bad Kissingen has been one of the regular destinations of the Czech Philharmonic in recent years. Together with its chief conductor Semyon Bychkov, the orchestra will visit here again in July 2025 and perform two concerts.