Czech Philharmonic • Nicholas Kraemer

Carolyn Sampson

soprano

Equally at home on the concert and opera stages, Carolyn Sampson has enjoyed notable successes in the UK as well as throughout Europe and the US.

On the opera stage her roles have included the title role in Semele and Pamina in The Magic Flute for English National Opera, various roles in Purcell’s The Fairy Queen for Glyndebourne Festival Opera (released on DVD) and both Anne Truelove The Rake’s Progress and Mélisande Pelléas et Mélisande in Sir David McVicar’s productions for Scottish Opera. Internationally she has appeared at Opéra de Paris, Opéra de Lille, Opéra de Montpellier and Opéra National du Rhin. She also sang the title role in Lully’s Psyché for the Boston Early Music Festival, which was released on CD and was subsequently nominated for a Grammy.

Carolyn’s numerous concert engagements in the UK have included regular appearances at the BBC Proms; in Europe her many appearances have included concerts with Bergen Philharmonic, Freiburger Barockorchester, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; in the US Carolyn has featured as soloist with the Boston, Cincinnati, Detroit, and San Francisco Symphonies among others.

A consummate recitalist, Carolyn Sampson appears regularly at the Wigmore Hall where she was a “featured artist” in the 14/15 season. Carolyn has developed a partnership with the pianist Joseph Middleton over recent years. Her debut song recital disc with Joseph, ‘Fleurs’, was released early in 2015 featuring songs by composers from Purcell to Britten, and was nominated in the solo vocal category of the Gramophone Awards. Since then they have gone on to release various CDs, most recently ‘The Contrast – English Poetry in Song’.

Alongside her longstanding relationship with the BIS label she has released multi award-winning discs for Decca, Harmonia Mundi, and Hyperion, receiving accolades including the Choc de l’Année Classica, Gramophone Magazine Editor’s Choice, BBC Music Magazine’s “Record of the Month”, an ECHO Award, and a Diapason D’or. 

Helen Charlston

alto

The young mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston appears frequently on the world’s most important stages including London’s Wigmore Hall and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdamm interpreting the works of G. F. Handel. Her fame was secured by victory at the Handel Singing Competition in London in 2018, and her career has been advancing promisingly with performances of Israel in Egypt with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Theodora with the Philharmonia Baroque in San Francisco, and Judas Maccabaeus at Berlin’s Philharmonie with the RIAS Kammerchor.

Helen Charlston has participated in the Rising Star programme of the famed Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and in the academy Le Jardin des Voix organised by Les Arts Florissants, and she is now a BBC New Generation Artist. She specialises mainly in early music ranging from Monteverdi to Mozart (although she was brilliant in Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah alongside Carolyn Sampson and Andrew Staples in the summer at the BBC Proms), as can be seen from, among other things, her CD with arias of the 17th century, which earned her a 2023 Gramophone Award.

Andrew Staples

tenor

Andrew Staples is considered one of the most versatile tenors of his generation, appearing regularly with Sir Simon Rattle, Daniel Harding, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, with the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra. We could also see him at the Salzburg and Lucerne music festivals. He has performed several times in the Czech Republic, at the National Theater in Prague, the State Opera, and with the Czech Philharmonic, where we could hear him in Schumann’s oratorio Paradise and the Peri and in Handel’s Messiah. In 2025, he was praised by critics for his performance in Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, among other things. His creative output includes concert and opera singing, directing opera, filmmaking and photography.

Matthew Brook

bass

Matthew Brook is known for his honest and open portrayal of characters whether on the opera or concert stage. He leapt to fame with his 2007 Gramophone Award-winning recording of Handel’s Messiah with the Dunedin Consort, followed by equally critically acclaimed recordings of Acis and Galatea and St Matthew Passion. He has appeared as a soloist throughout Europe, Australia, North and South America and the Far East, and has worked with many of the world’s leading conductors. He has developed a world-wide reputation for his interpretation of the music of J. S Bach and G. F. Handel but his musical tastes stretch far beyond this, often performing new commissions. 

In 2023 Matthew made his Opéra national de Paris debut performing the role of Il Re di Scozia in a new Robert Carsen production of Ariodante under Harry Bicket. He has performed roles at Staatstheater Stuttgart, Opéra Comique, Göttingen International Handel Festival, The Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg and at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Recent highlights include the role of Aeneas in the world premiere of Errollyn Wallen’s Dido’s Ghost co-commissioned by the Dunedin Consort with the Barbican Centre, Edinburgh International Festival, Buxton International Festival and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale, a return to the Edinburgh International Festival for a special performance of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte with Maxim Emelyanchev and the SCO, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Royal Philharmonic under Vasily Petrenko.

Future recording releases will include a new recording of Handel’s Messiah with John Nelson, the English Concert and Choir and a recording of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with David Bates and La Nuova Musica.

This season, Matthew makes his debut with Opera North in David Poutney’s “Masque of Might”, music by Purcell, conducted by Harry Bicket, returns to Grange Park Opera, and gives performances with the Czech Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Philharmonia Baroque, Handel and Haydn Society Boston and closer to home with the Academy of Ancient Music, English Concert, Dunedin Consort, The Hallé and Royal Northern Sinfonia to name a few. 

Prague Philharmonic Choir

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

choirmaster

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.

Nicholas Kraemer

conductor

Nicholas Kraemer, a pioneer of historically informed interpretation and now chief guest conductor of the Chicago-based orchestra Music of the Baroque, has earned an international reputation for leading ensembles specializing in early music. He began his career as a harpsichordist, but soon moved to the front of the orchestra, conducting directly from this instrument. He has held positions as artistic director of the Irish Chamber Orchestra and the London Bach Orchestra, was the first music director of the British company English Touring Opera and founded the ensemble The Raglan Baroque Players.

However, he also guest conducts modern orchestras (especially in the US and the UK, but also, for example, the Berlin Philharmonic), which he guides toward informed interpretation. Although Baroque is his main specialization, his repertoire ranges from Monteverdi to the present day. In Paris, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Geneva, Bergen, and Marseille, he has conducted numerous operas by R. Strauss, B. Britten, W. A. Mozart, and others.

The music of G. F. Handel plays an important role in his conducting and performing activities. In the spring of 2025, on the occasion of his 80th birthday, he performed Handel’s oratorio Theodora with the Music of the Baroque orchestra and choir. He also has a close relationship with Handel’s oratorio Messiah, which he first heard at the age of nine at an orchestra rehearsal in Edinburgh, where his mother played. He was very impressed by the work and has performed it more than a hundred times during his conducting career. In 2022, he also successfully recorded it and released it on CD. He also performed this work during his debut with the Czech Philharmonic, together with the Prague Philharmonic Choir and leading British soloists in 2024 – the performance was praised by critics and hailed as one of the highlights of the season. He returned to Czechia a year later to conduct Bach’s Mass in B minor.

Kraemer’s discography is also extensive – examples include Vivaldi’s concertos with the City of London Sinfonia chamber orchestra, P. Locatelli’s Concerti grossi, G. Tartini’s Violin concertos, and concertos by F. Durante, G. B. Pergolesi, and L. Leo with violinist Elizabeth Wallfisch and the Raglan Baroque Players.

A three-part series is available on YouTube, in which Nicholas Kraemer talks to Sir Simon Rattle as part of the accompanying program to the concerts of the Music of the Baroque orchestra. This informal and friendly discussion between the two conductors offers listeners an interesting insight into their memories and personal experiences, not only with Baroque music. Nicholas Kraemer has also been involved in several feature films, most notably as Baroque music director for the film The Madness of King George.