Czech Chamber Music Society • Kateřina Kněžíková

Soprano Kateřina Kněžíková is one of today’s most promising singers. Besides performing opera, she is increasingly devoting herself to the concert repertoire, collaborating with such ensembles as the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Bamberg Symphony, the Camerata Salzburg, or the Orchestra dellʼAccademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Her core repertoire consists of works by Dvořák, Martinů, and Janáček and the song repertoire. She is a laureate of several vocal competitions and was honoured at the 2018 Classic Prague Awards for the best chamber music performance. She earned a Thalia Award for her outstanding performance in Julietta (Martinů) on the stage of the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre.

In 2006 she became a full-time opera ensemble member at the National Theatre, where she is now appearing in many productions including Rusalka, Così fan tutte, Carmen, The Magic Flute, The Bartered Bride, and The Jacobin. Nonetheless, she sees one of her greatest successes as having been the title role in Káťa Kabanová at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival in 2021. 

David Švec studied piano and conducting first at the České Budějovice Conservatoire and then at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno. In February 2000 he took part at conducting masterclasses under Sir Colin Davis in Dresden, and in 2002 he completed a study visit at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna (under Leopold Hager). In 2004 he won the Bösendorfer Preis in the opera coaching category at the Belvedere International Competition in Vienna.

Although he also appears regularly in concert halls (Bamberg Symphony, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Moravian Philharmonic in Olomouc), David Švec profiles himself mainly as an opera conductor. Already as a student he was active at the Janáček Opera in Berlin, then in September 2003 he began working at Prague’s National Theatre, where he has had a full-time conducting engagement since 2011. Last year he became the chief conductor of opera at the South Bohemia Theatre in České Budějovice. He also makes guest appearances abroad at opera houses (Barcelona, Paris, Vienna, Ljubljana) and festivals (Glyndebourne). In 2014 for the publisher Bärenreiter, he made the new piano vocal score for Janáček’s opera Věc Makropulos, which was used for the first time for the production of the opera at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich.

He has been collaborating with the Prague Chamber Orchestra as a pianist since 1998, and he is in demand as an especially sensitive chamber music partner. He has also made many CD recordings for Czech Radio. He appears on stage regularly with leading Czech singers such as soprano Eva Urbanová, bass-baritone Adam Plachetka, and soprano Kateřina Kněžíková, with whom he has appeared, for example, at the Prague Spring Festival (2010 and 2015).