Czech Chamber Music Society • Václav Petr

One of the most important and sought-after Czech violinists and the concertmaster of the Czech Philharmonic Jiří Vodička has excelled in a number of competitions since very early on (such as the J. Kocian International Violin Competition and Prague Junior Note). In 2002, he also won the award for best participant in the violin courses led by Václav Hudeček, with whom he subsequently performed in dozens of concerts throughout the Czech Republic. At the unusually early age of 14, he was admitted to the Institute for Artistic Studies at the University of Ostrava, where he studied under the renowned pedagogue Zdeněk Gola. He graduated in 2007 with a master’s degree. His success in competitions continued into adulthood, when he won, for example, the world-renowned Young Concert Artist (2008). 

He has made solo appearances not only with Czech orchestras like the Prague Philharmonia or the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, but also with the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra, the New Philharmonic Orchestra of Westphalia, and the Wuhan Philharmonic Orchestra. His professional activities are of greater breadth, however. His solo debut, Violino Solo (2014), was followed in 2024 by a double album featuring the complete works for violin and piano by Antonín Dvořák, recorded with pianist David Mareček, which earned prestigious accolades from international media, including Gramophone and the French magazine Diapason. 

Crossover fans can hear him on his worldwide Vivaldianno tour. He has performed chamber music with the outstanding Czech pianists Ivo Kahánek, Ivan Klánský, and Miroslav Sekera. He regularly takes part at famous festivals, such as the Prague Spring, Janáček May, Grand festival of China and Choriner Musiksommer. In 2020, he founded The Trio, a group he forms together with pianist Martin Kasík and cellist Václav Petr, with whom he won the Vienna International Competition in 2021. Many of the concerts of the “Czech Paganini”, as Vodička is sometimes called because of his extraordinary technical skill, have been recorded by Czech Television, Czech Radio, or the German broadcasting company ARD. Besides all of that he teaches at the University of Ostrava. 

In the 2025–2026 season, Jiří Vodička performed works from both the international and Czech repertoires and built upon successful collaborations from previous years. He performed in a dual role as both soloist and conductor with the Moravian Philharmonic in Olomouc and appeared with the Czech Philharmonic in Korngold’s Violin Concerto as part of the Karlovy Vary variations. A major event of the spring of 2026 was the collaboration with the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava, with whom he recorded a new solo album for the Supraphon label under the baton of Robert Kružík. In the realm of chamber music, he can also be heard in numerous projects, such as the thematically diverse series In the Footsteps of Antonín Dvořák or the dialogue between two violinists titled Two masters, one stage, in which Jiří Vodička performs alongside his colleague and fellow concertmaster of the Czech Philharmonic, Jan Mráček.

He plays Italian violin made by Joseph Gagliano in 1774 which he received for long-term use from the Czech Philharmonic’s former chief conductor Jiří Bělohlávek.

Martin Kasík is one of the most prominent figures on the Czech music scene. He is acclaimed by critics and audiences alike for his creative, poetic approach to performance, through which he captures the mood of the moment, a spiritual depth, and an extraordinary richness and variety of moods. He studied at the Janáček Conservatory in Ostrava under Monika Tugendliebová and at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague in the class of Ivan Klánský. He broadened his musical horizons through masterclasses with Lazar Berman, Garrick Ohlson, Christian Zacharias, and Paul Badura-Skoda.

His victory in the Prague Spring competition in 1998 and, a year later, in the prestigious Young Concert Artists Competition in New York opened the door to the world’s major concert halls—New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonic Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, Zurich’s Tonhalle, Leipzig’s Gewandhaus, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, De Doelen in Rotterdam, Helsinki’s Finlandia Hall, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington, and others. In one of his interviews, he mentioned that he enjoyed playing best in Japanese concert halls on local instruments—praising their technical quality and exceptional maintenance.

Under the baton of prominent Czech and international conductors (Pinchas Zukerman, Marin Alsop, Yakov Kreizberg, Ingo Metzmacher, Serge Baudo, Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi, Libor Pešek, Jakub Hrůša, Tomáš Netopil), he has performed with numerous orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Stuttgart Philharmonic, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic, and, last but not least, the Czech Philharmonic. He regularly collaborates with the Prague Symphony Orchestra (FOK), with whom he has toured Japan and the United States.

During the 2025/2026 season, Martin Kasík performed—among other engagements—concert series with violinist Ivan Ženatý, presenting works by Schumann, Richard Strauss, Rachmaninoff, and Martinů in Brussels, on tour of Spain, and in Prague. In the spring of 2026, he also served as a jury member for the Prague Spring competition.

His discography includes solo, chamber, and concert recordings that have received numerous accolades in Gramophone, Repertoire, and Harmonie magazines. To date, he has released 15 albums for the Czech labels Supraphon and ArcoDiva; his latest album, Ballades & Scherzos, featuring works by Fryderyk Chopin, was recorded in 2024 at the Rudolfinum.

Martin Kasík is also active as a teacher—he currently teaches at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and the Prague Conservatory. Since 2008, he has also served as artistic director of the Chopin Festival in Mariánské Lázně. His wife, Kristina Kasíková, is also a pianist, and their two children are also involved in music.