Czech Philharmonic • Velvet Revolution Concert

Lucy Crowe has established herself as one of the leading lyric sopranos of her generation. She has sung with opera companies throughout the UK and Europe, including the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, the Glyndebourne Festival, English National Opera, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Bavarian State Opera. She made her US operatic debut as Iole (Handel’s Hercules) for Chicago Lyric Opera, reprising the role for the Canadian Opera Company, and she made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera, New York as Servilia (La clemenza di Tito), returning last season for Adele (Die Fledermaus).

On the concert platform she is much in demand with the world’s major orchestras and conductors and she has appeared at the Aldeburgh, Edinburgh, Salzburg and Tanglewood Festivals and at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York.

Lucy’s 2016/2017 operatic plans include the title role in Rodelinda at the Teatro Real Madrid and Ismene (Mitridate) at the Royal Opera House. In concert she will appear with the Philadelphia Orchestra, on tour with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Accademia Santa Cecilia Orchestra.

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 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.

“Oramo really gets under the skin of this music, and the audience showered him with warm appreciation. I can feel National Treasure status beckoning already.” – Ivan Hewett, The Telegraph

Winner of the 2015 Royal Philharmonic Society Conductor of the Year award, Sakari Oramo is Chief Conductor of both the BBC Symphony and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic orchestras, and Principal Conductor of the West Coast Kokkola Opera and Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra. Between 1998 and 2008 he was Music Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and after a decade as chief conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, he has now served as their Honorary Conductor since 2012.

Highlights of the 2016/2017 season include numerous concerts with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, with whom he champions the promotion of new and rarely performed works – this season he conducts the world premiere of Michael Zev Gordon’s Violin Concerto and the UK premiere of Detlev Glanert’s Megaris, as well as Schmitt’s Anthony and Cleopatra joined by actors from Shakespeare’s Globe, and an immersion day into the life and work of French-American composer Edgar Varèse. Further highlights include touring the Baltics with Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and Janine Jansen, and concerts with Boston Philharmonic and Wiener Philharmoniker.

Previous seasons’ highlights have included performances with the New York Philharmonic, a European tour with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and Lisa Batiashvili, a Sibelius cycle with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe at the Turku Festival as well as concerts with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Wiener Philharmoniker and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. During the summer of 2016 he also conducted several Proms performances with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, including the First and Last Nights at the Royal Albert Hall, having previously conducted the Last Night in 2014.

An accomplished violinist, Oramo was originally concertmaster of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 2014 he made his debut in the BBC Proms Chamber Music series, performing Prokofiev’s Sonata for Two Violins with Janine Jansen.

Recent recording successes include the BBC Music Magazine’s Orchestra award for his recording of Nielsen Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3 with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, which completes their highly acclaimed Nielsen cycle. Other highlights include Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Javier Perianes and Nørgård’s Symphonies Nos. 1 & 8 with Wiener Philharmoniker.