Czech Philharmonic on the Vltava • Concert for Europe

Dramatic soprano Evelina Dobračeva began her musical career studying accordion, conducting and teaching in her hometown Syzran, Russia. She graduated with a diploma before relocating to Germany, where she began singing under the tuition of Norma Sharp, Snezana Nena Brzakovic and Julia Varady at the Hanns Eisler Music College Berlin. She claimed the highest level of scholarship from the German Republic and was a prize winner at the Würzburg Mozart Competition in 2006.

She performed at the Bayerische Staatsoper (Khovanshina), Cincinnati Opera (Tosca), Bolshoi Theatre (Pique Dame) and Theater St Gallen (Onegin and Fidelio). In concert she has recently sung Erwartung with the Capella Cracoviensis, the War Requiem with the LPO conducted by Vladimir Jurovsky, at Musikverein Vienna; Carnegie Hall and with the Spanish Radio, Verdi Requiem with the Scottish Orchestra, Mozarteum Salzburg, The Bells with Santa Cecilia Orchestra and Shostakovich 14 with Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

The Czech mezzo-soprano Lucie Hilscherová, a laureate of the Karlovy Vary International Competition, Cantilena Bayreuth, and Musica Sacra in Rome, makes guest appearances at many Czech and Slovak theatres including Prague’s National Theatre, and also at the National Theatre in Mannheim, where she has sung roles in a broad repertoire ranging from Mozart to Hába. She introduced herself to the public at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall and London’s Barbican Hall as Háta in The Bartered Bride. In the 2025/2026 season, she could be heard in Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites, Janáček’s The Makropulos Affair, and Dvořák’s Rusalka. She has also toured Europe with Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass, which she successfully performed with Sir Simon Rattle and the Czech Philharmonic at the Rudolfinum in January 2025. Her domain is the concert hall, singing both the art song and oratorio repertoire, as is seen from her collaborations with leading orchestras and conductors. She also enjoys performing early music and the works of contemporary composers. She has also performed at numerous festivals, including Musikfest Stuttgart, Beethovenfest Bonn, and Grafenegg Musik-Sommer. 

Two-time Thalia Award winner Aleš Briscein is a sought-after guest at Czech and foreign theatres and concert halls. He originally studied clarinet and saxophone, then opera singing at the Prague Conservatoire. Thereafter, he furthered his studies at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen. He has performed at the prestigious Salzburg, Edinburgh, and Prague Spring festivals, including having sung the main tenor role of part Jonathan in the world premiere of the oratorio Judas Maccabeus by Sylvie Bodorová. For the Decca label, he make a CD recording of Pavel Haas’s opera The Charlatan, and he has sung in Alban Berg’s Wozzeck in Valencia and in Zemlinsky’s opera Der Zwerg with the Odyssey Opera in Boston. His range of repertoire is very broad, and he enjoys devoting himself to early music and sacred works. Although he has appeared in concert collaborating with many important orchestras, his career focuses on opera. He is a regular guest in Prague with the National Theatre and the State Opera, and abroad he works in close cooperation with the Opéra National de Paris. He has also appeared on the stages of the Teatro Real in Madrid, Vienna’s Volksoper, Berlin’s Komische Oper, the Bavarian State Opera, and Oper Graz.

Vocal beauty combined with brilliant technique and comic talent have made Jan Martiník, a graduate of the Janáček Conservatoire and of the University of Ostrava, into one of the leading singers of the younger generation. Despite having just recently celebrated his 30th birthday, he already has several competition successes to his credit (victories at the Antonín Dvořák International Competition in Karlovy Vary and at BBC Cardiff Singer of the World, laureate of the Yelena Obraztsova International Singing Competition in Moscow, finalist at Placido Domingo’s singing competition Operalia). He has made guest appearances at Prague’s National Theatre and has held engagements first at the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre in Ostrava, then at Berlin’s Komische Oper and the Staatsoper Unter den Linden.

He has appeared in concert with such famed orchestras as the Czech Philharmonic (for example in the Glagolitic Mass on a European tour and on a floating stage on the Vltava), the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the King’s Consort, and Collegium 1704. He is especially acclaimed in the art song repertoire for the purity of his interpretations of Schubert’s Winterreise and of Dvořák’s Biblical Songs.

A graduate of Prague’s Academy of Performing Arts and of a year-long study visit at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg, since 2006 Daniela Valtová Kosinová has been the solo organist and principal keyboard player of the Prague Symphony Orchestra. As a soloist, she collaborates with other Czech and foreign orchestras and appears regularly with the Czech Philharmonic, with which she has twice toured the USA. Her first performance with this orchestra of the Glagolitic Mass, to which she “found a path of her own”, took place at Vienna’s Musikverein under the baton of Jiří Bělohlávek, followed by several more performances including one on a floating stage on the Vltava and others on a tour of Europe in 2022. 

A winner of third prize and the title of laureate at the Brno International Organ Competition in 2002, she is often invited to such leading music festivals as Beethovenfest Bonn, Prague Spring, Smetana’s Litomyšl, and Janáček May. She is a cofounder of the concert programme Music Between the Words, and she also devotes herself to composing. In 2010 she released a jazz album of her own music titled Meeting Point, and she has appeared at numerous jazz festivals.

The Prague Philharmonic Choir (PPC), founded in 1935 by the choirmaster Jan Kühn, is the oldest professional mixed choir in the Czech Republic. Their current choirmaster and artistic director is Lukáš Vasilek, and the second choirmaster is Lukáš Kozubík.

The choir has earned the highest acclaim in the oratorio and cantata repertoire, performing with the world’s most famous orchestras. In this country, they collaborate regularly with the Czech Philharmonic and the Prague Philharmonia. They also perform opera as the choir-in-residence of the opera festival in Bregenz, Austria.

Programmes focusing mainly on difficult, lesser-known works of the choral repertoire. For voice students, they are organising the Academy of Choral Singing, and for young children there is a cycle of educational concerts.

The choir has been honoured with the 2018 Classic Prague Award and the 2022 Antonín Dvořák Prize.

Lukáš Vasilek studied conducting and musicology. Since 2007, he has been the chief choirmaster of the Prague Philharmonic Choir (PPC). Most of his artistic work with them involves rehearsing and performing a cappella repertoire and preparing them to perform in large-scale cantatas, oratorios, and operatic projects in collaboration with world-famous conductors and orchestras (Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Kyiv Symphony Orchestra, etc.).

In addition to leading the PPC, he is active in a wide range of artistic projects, most notably in collaboration with the vocal ensemble Martinů Voices, which he founded in 2010. As a conductor and choirmaster, he appears on numerous recordings for major international labels, including Decca Classics and Supraphon. In recent years, he has focused systematically on recording the choral music of Bohuslav Martinů. His recordings have received extraordinary worldwie acclaim and have earned awards from prestigious publications such as Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, and Diapason.