Czech Chamber Music Society • Czech Philharmonic Wind Ensemble

Fanfare for The Common Man (4')

Aaron Copland

The American composer, teacher, and conductor Aaron Copland grew up in Brooklyn in a musical environment, but he first received thorough musical training from Nadia Boulanger in Paris. A fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation soon enabled him to devote himself exclusively to composing. Gradually he also became involved with organising musical events and teaching. He served as the chairman of the League of American Composers and of the American branch of the International Society for Contemporary Music. His first compositions combined elements of neoclassicism and jazz (Music for the Theatre, Piano Concerto), but his lack of public success led him to simplify his compositional language and to turn away from symphonic music in favour of film music, music for young people, ballets (Billy the Kid, Rodeo, Appalachian Spring), and opera. Copland became one of America’s most important composers of the interwar period.

Copland wrote the brilliant, untroubled Fanfare for The Common Man in 1942, which was premiered in March 1943 by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and its conductor Eugene Goossens. The piece inspired a number of later compositions including firm music. During the First World War, Goossens asked English composers to write fanfares to open symphonic concerts, and that proved to be so successful that he did the same thing during the Second World War in America. Of the 18 fanfares written for this purpose, only Copland’s has remained in the repertoire. The composer wrote it in reaction to the entry of the USA into the war.

Ondřej Vrabec

conductor

Ondřej Vrabec is an extraordinary figure on the Czech music scene. After over two decades he continues to successfully advance his artistic career as an award-winning conductor, seasoned solo horn player at the Czech Philharmonic, sought-after chamber musician, respected teacher at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and, newly, as Chiefconductor of the Carlsbad Symphony Orchestra.

He graduated from the Prague Conservatory and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, supplementing his studies with numerous master classes. As a conductor, Ondřej Vrabec performs with many orchestras around the world (e.g. Japan Philharmonic, New Japan Philharmonic, Budapest Dohnányi Orchestra, Reykjavík Chamber Orchestra, London Soloists Chamber Orchestra) as well as in the Czech Republic, including the Czech Philharmonic (chief conductor’s assistant from 2014 to 2017). For many years he was a member of an international team of conductors at the renowned festivals of contemporary music Ostrava Days and NODO.

Kristina Marková Stepasjuková

piano

Kristina Marková Stepasjuková studied the piano at the Pardubice Conservatory (under Inna Tolmačová) and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (under Ivan Klánský), from which she graduated with a doctorate (P. I. Tchaikovskyʼs solo piano works). She then went on to study chamber music at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna (with Avedis Kouyoumdjian), and also attended a number of masterclasses (led by V. Ashkenazi, P. Jasmin, M. Perrahia, etc.).

She has garnered many accolades at national and international competitions (Prague Junior Note, Mozart Wunderkind in Vienna, Beethoven Hradec, Concorso Pianistico Internazionale Roma, Romantische Stern in Kassel, etc.), and has won prizes for piano accompaniment or chamber music performance at home and abroad (e.g. ISA Challenge – Klavierkammermusik).

In 2016, with the Czech Philharmonic’s Orchestral Academy, conducted by Ondřej Vrabec, she gave the world premiere of the British composer Peter Seaborne’s Piano Concerto No. 2. She has performed at festivals in the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, Japan and Russia.

Kristina Marková Stepasjuková is currently a member of the piano accompaniment sections at the Prague Conservatory and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.