Czech Chamber Music Society • Collegium Marianum

Since it was founded in 1997, the Prague ensemble Collegium Marianum has focused on presenting the music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially by composers who were born or active in central Europe. One of the few professional ensembles specializing in this field in the Czech Republic, Collegium Marianum not only gives musical performances, but regularly also stages scenic projects.

The ensemble works under the artistic leadership of the traverso player Jana Semerádová who also regularly appears as a soloist with some of the eminent European orchestras. Her unique, thematic programming has resulted in a number of modern-day premieres of historical music presented each year.

The ensemble has collaborated with renowned European conductors, soloists, directors, and choreographers such as Andrew Parrott, Hana Blažíková, François Fernandez, Simona Šaturová or Gudrun Skamletz, and regularly performs at music festivals and on prestigious stages both in the Czech Republic and elsewhere in Europe. 

In 2008 the ensemble started a successful collaboration with the Supraphon label. Within the “Music from Eighteenth-Century Prague” series it has launched eight recordings featuring music by well-known and lesser-known composers such as J. D. Zelenka, F. Jiránek, J. J. I. Brentner, and J. A. Sehling. 
In January 2010 Collegium Marianum was awarded with an honor for the credits of quality and for the general promotion of Czech music, presented by the International Music Council by UNESCO.

Since 2001 Collegium Marianum has presented the concert cycle Baroque Soirées. Thanks to its thematic programming and close interconnection with the historical spaces of Old Prague, the series is unique not only in the Czech, but also international context. Collegium Marianum is the ensemble in residence of the international music festival Summer Festivities of Early Music.

Lenka Torgersen studied violin at the Pilsen Conservatory and subsequently at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague under Václav Snítil. After graduating she focused intensively on Baroque violin and honed her skills from at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis under the tutelage of Chiara Banchini.

From 1999 to 2012 she was concertmaster of Collegium 1704. Currently concertmaster of Collegium Marianum, she also works regularly with other Czech and international ensembles including La Cetra Barockorchester Basel, Les Traversées Baroques or Ensemble Tourbillon. As a chamber musician and soloist she performs at major music festivals and also collaborates with various leading figures in early music including René Jacobs, Andrea Marcon, Jordi Savall or Attilio Cremonesi.

Torgersen has recorded for renowned international labels such as Harmonia Mundi, Accent, Zig-Zag Territoires and Pan Classics. The album she recorded as a soloist with Collegium 1704, featuring the instrumental works of Antonín Reichenauer, received the Diapason d’Or award. In 2013, Suprahon published her solo CD entitled ‘‘Il Violino Boemo’’, a modern-day premiere reviving the sonatas of the 18th century Czech violin virtuosi František Benda, Josef Antonín Gurecký and František Jiránek. This recording also garnered enthusiastic reviews from both Czech and foreign critics.

Flautist Jana Semerádová, a laureate of the Magdeburg and Munich international competitions, is a graduate of the Prague Conservatory, the Faculty of Philosophy, Charles University (Theory and Practice of Early Music), and the Royal Conservatory in the Hague, the Netherlands. In 2015 she received her habilitation degree as an associate professor of flute from the Faculty of Music and Dance at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.

She is the artistic director of Collegium Marianum, programming director of the concert cycle Baroque Soirées and of the international music festival Summer Festivities of Early Music. Undertaking intensive archival research both at home and abroad while being engaged in ongoing study of Baroque gesture, declamation and dance, many of her unique programmes are built around the interconnection of music and drama.

Under her direction, Collegium Marianum stages several modern premieres each year. Their recordings are featured as part of the successful series ‘‘Music from Eighteenth-Century Prague’’ on the Supraphon label, for which Semerádová has also recorded her two signature CDs ‘‘Solo for the King’’ and ‘‘Chaconne for the Princess‘‘.

Jana Semerádová has performed at leading European concert venues and festivals, and regularly performs with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Wrocławska Orkiestra Barokowa or Orkiestra Historyczna as a soloist. In 2019 she was awarded the prize of the Prague Group of the Society for Arts and Sciences.