Musical Gathering for Richard Novák’s 95th Birthday

Richard Novák is a legendary opera singer, composer and organist. After completing secondary school in Telč, he went on to study theology at the seminary in Brno and, following its abolition by the Communists, enrolled at the local conservatory (Jiří Wooth). In 1961, he came second at the vocal competition in Toulouse, a year later he became a laureate at Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands.

In 1954, Novák was named am opera soloist in Ostrava; in 1961, he was appointed a soloist of the Janáček Theatre in Brno. He has appeared as a guest in Graz, Buenos Aires (Teatro Colón), Paris, Madrid and Venice, and also sang at the Salzburger Festspiele (in Janáček’s From the House of the Dead, conducted by Claudio Abbado). He has to date portrayed more than 150 opera roles. 

Moreover, Richard Novák has performed oratorios, with the Czech and Slovak Philharmonics, and other orchestras. His repertoire also includes song cycles and contemporary Czech music. 

In 2001, at the age of 70, he received the Thalia Prize for lifelong achievement. Still an active artist, since that year he has appeared in some 300 performances of operas and at over 300 concerts.

Miroslav Sekera, winner of the 2002 Johannes Brahms International Competition in Portschach, Austria, had already won prizes at many important competitions in this country and abroad (F. Chopin International Competition in Mariánské Lázně, YAMAHA Scholarship Competition, International Piano Competition in Gaillard, France). In 2016 he won a prize from the “Salon de Virtuosi” music society in New York.

He has two solo CDs to his credit, which have won awards on the website Pizzicato.lu; for Joseph Summer, a contemporary composer from Boston, he has recorded seven more CDs in the USA. He collaborates with Czech Radio and with leading Czech orchestras and festivals, including a solo recital at the Rudolf Firkušný Piano Festival at the Rudolfinum. He makes guest appearances abroad, especially in Japan and the USA. 

He performs regularly with violinist Josef Špaček, mezzo-soprano Dagmar Pecková, and French horn player Radek Baborák.

He began playing piano at age three and graduated from the Prague Conservatoire (Eva Boguniová and Martin Ballý) and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (Miroslav Langer).