Czech Philharmonic • Velvet Revolution Concert

Dutch violinist Janine Jansen works regularly with the world’s most eminent orchestras and conductors. This season’s highlights include engagements with Tonhalle Orchestra/Paavo Järvi, London Symphony Orchestra/Gianandrea Noseda, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra (in a play/direct programme) and Orquesta Nacional de España/David Afkham. As part of her artist residency with Orchestre de Paris, she joins the ensemble on a major European concert tour under Music Director Klaus Mäkelä as well as in subscription concerts in Paris.

During season 2022/23 the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra invite Janine Jansen on two occasions: for performances of Mozart’s Violin Concerto No 4 with Herbert Blomstedt and again for performances of Sally Beamish’s Concerto Distans together with Martin Fröst and Klaus Mäkelä. The work was jointly commissioned by the orchestra. She joins Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Sir Antonio Pappano for an extensive tour across Europe and in spring 2023 she joins Camerata Salzburg for a series of European performances presenting Mozart’s Violin Concertos.

Janine records exclusively for Decca Classics. Her latest recording “12 Stradivari” released in September 2021, is a unique exploration of 12 great Stradivarius violins and the repertoire these extraordinary instruments inspired. The chosen repertoire is specially curated by Janine Jansen to showcase the unique qualities of each violin.
 
She is Artistic Director at the International Chamber Music Festival Utrecht, a festival she founded back in 2003. Further chamber music projects are planned at Sion Festival as well as at Kölner Philharmonie as part of an artist residency. Since 2019 she is Professor of Violin at the HÉMU Sion (Haute École de Musique Vaud Valais Fribourg).

Janine has won numerous prizes, including the Vermeer Prize 2018 awarded by the Dutch government, five Edison Klassiek Awards, der Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik, NDR Musikpreis for outstanding artistic achievement and the Concertgebouw Prize. She has been given the VSCD Klassieke Muziekprijs for individual achievement and the Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist Award for performances in the UK. In September 2015 she was awarded the Bremen MusikFest Award. Janine studied with Coosje Wijzenbeek, Philipp Hirshhorn and Boris Belkin.

Janine Jansen plays the Shumsky-Rode Stradivarius from 1715, on generous loan by a European benefactor.

The Prague Philharmonic Choir is the most important and oldest professional mixed choir in the Czech Republic. During its long history, there has been a succession of the most important Czech choirmasters at its helm; since 2007, the chief choirmaster has been Lukáš Vasilek, and the second choirmaster is currently Lukáš Kozubík.

The Prague Philharmonic Choir performs mainly the oratorio and cantata repertoire in collaboration with the world most famous orchestras (the Berliner Philharmoniker, Czech Philharmonic, the Israel Philharmonic, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Dresden or Wiener Symphoniker, among others) led by such illustrious conductors as Sir Simon Rattle, Daniel Barenboim, Zubin Mehta, Fabio Luisi, Semyon Bychkov, Jiří Bělohlávek, and Jakub Hrůša. It also performs in opera as an ensemble-in-residence at the opera festival in Bregenz, Austria.

The choir is realising several projects of its own. Since 2011 it has been presenting an independent series of choral concerts in Prague, with its programming focused mainly on challenging, lesser-known works of the choral repertoire. Music education for young people is an integral part of the choir’s activities, with a Choral Academy for vocal students and a series of educational concerts for younger children.

Lukáš Vasilek studied conducting and musicology. Since 2007 he has been the chief choirmaster of the Prague Philharmonic Choir. Most of his artistic activity with the choir involves rehearsing and performing a cappella repertoire along with preparing the choir to perform in large-scale cantata, oratorio, and opera projects in collaboration with world-famous conductors and orchestras (Berlin Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Saint Petersburg Philharmonic etc.).

Besides his work with the Prague Philharmonic Choir, he also engages in other performing activities mainly in cooperation with the Martinů Voices, which he founded in 2010. He is credited as a conductor or choirmaster on a large number of Prague Philharmonic Choir recordings made for important international labels (Decca Classics, Supraphon). In recent years, he has been devoting himself systematically to recording the choral music of Bohuslav Martinů. His recordings have won exceptional acclaim abroad, earning honours including awards from the prestigious journals Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, and Diapason. Vasilek has been teaching conducting at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague since 2021.

One of today’s most sought-after conductors, acclaimed for his charismatic leadership and inspirational performances in both symphonic and operatic repertoire, Sir Antonio Pappano has been Music Director of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden since 2002, and Music Director of the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome since 2005. Nurtured as a pianist, repetiteur and assistant conductor at many of the most important opera houses of Europe and North America, he has held titles with Norwegian Opera, Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Brussels, and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2023 he becomes Chief Conductor Designate of the London Symphony Orchestra, taking the full Chief Conductor title from 2024.

Pappano appears as guest conductor with many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras, festivals and opera houses, including the Berlin and New York Philharmonic Orchestras, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the London, Chicago and Boston Symphonies, the Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras, Vienna State Opera, Metropolitan Opera New York and Teatro alla Scala Milan, the Salzburg and Verbier Festivals, and the BBC Proms. He has been an exclusive recording artist for Warner Classics (formerly EMI Classics) since 1995.

As a pianist, Antonio Pappano appears as an accompanist with some of the most celebrated singers, including Joyce DiDonato, Diana Damrau, Gerald Finley and Ian Bostridge. He has also partnered singers and instrumental soloists on disc, including in operatic recitals with Nina Stemme, Placido Domingo, Anna Netrebko and Jonas Kaufmann, concerto recordings with soloists including Leif Ove Andsnes, Maxim Vengerov, Janine Jansen, Jan Lisiecki and Beatrice Rana, and chamber recitals with Ian Bostridge, Barbara Bonney and Joyce DiDonato.

Antonio Pappano was born in London to Italian parents, and moved with his family to the United States at the age of 13. He studied piano with Norma Verrilli, composition with Arnold Franchetti and conducting with Gustav Meier. His awards and honours include Gramophone’s ‘Artist of the Year’ in 2000, the 2003 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera, the 2004 Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award, and the Bruno Walter prize from the Académie du Disque Lyrique in Paris. In 2012 he was created a Cavaliere di Gran Croce of the Republic of Italy, and a Knight of the British Empire for his services to music, and in 2015 he was named the 100th recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Gold Medal, the body’s highest honour. He has also developed a notable career as a speaker and presenter, and has fronted several critically-acclaimed BBC Television documentaries including ‘Opera Italia’, ‘Pappano’s Essential Ring Cycle’ and ‘Pappano’s Classical Voices’.