First round jury
Introducing the jury of the 1st round of Concertino Praga 2024.
The renowned oboist Jana Brožková graduated from the Prague Conservatory and the Music Faculty at the Academy of the Performing Arts in Prague. In 1983, she drew attention to herself by winning the Concertino Praga international competition and in 1989 she was the absolute winner and received a special prize at the Europäischer Musikpreis Zürich. She worked for a number of years as the solo oboist at the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra and she has played first oboe at the Czech Philharmonic since 2002. She also regularly performs as a soloist or as a member of chamber ensembles. She won the prestigious 1st prize in the ARD Munich competition in 1997 with the Afflatus Quintet. She has also been a teacher at the Music Faculty of the Academy of the Performing Arts in Prague since 1999.
Lukáš Hurník graduated from the Faculty of Education at Charles University and worked as the editor-in-chief at Czech Radio’s Vltava radio station until 2016. In 2017–2018, he was the executive producer of musical production at Czech Radio and he is now the executive producer of the Jazz and Czech Radio’s D-Major stations, the last of which he established as the Czech Republic’s first digital station in 2005. The list of his works includes spiritual, orchestral and family opera music. His compositions have been performed by leading conductors, such as Jiří Bělohlávek, Libor Pešek, Marek Štilec, James Judd, Tomáš Netopil, Ondrej Lenárd, Ondřej Kukal, Jan Kučera and others. A cross-section of Hurník’s work has been released on a compact disk called Fusion Music. In 2016, another of his profile albums called Compliments has been released by Arco Diva. Lukáš Hurník is also involved in popularising music at Czech Radio and Czech Television. He is the co-author of music textbooks for primary and secondary schools, as well as a popularisation book entitled Classic Music from Without and Within (Klasická hudba zvenčí a zevnitř).
The trumpeter Jiří Houdek graduated from the Prague Conservatory and the faculty of Music at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. He has supplemented his education at a number of masterclasses both domestically and abroad under the leadership of renowned teachers and performers. In 1995, he not only won the 1st prize among our young performers at the jubilee 30th year of the Concertino Praga International Radio Competition, but also the 1st place in the international competition. He has performed as a soloist with a number of domestic orchestras, for example the Prague Philharmonic, the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra or the Czech National Symphony Orchestra. His successful recordings include the trumpet concertos by J. N. Hummel and J. Haydn, Vivaldi’s baroque double concerto, Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto no. 2 and others. He has been the 1st trumpet at the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra since 1999. He has also been the 1st trumpet at the National Theatre Orchestra in Prague since 2008. He is a regular guest performer with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra and Solistes Européens Luxembourg.
Lukáš Klánský is a leading Czech pianist. He is sought after both as a soloist and as a chamber ensemble player. He started playing the piano at the Prague City Music School at the age of the five and subsequently graduated from the Prague Conservatory and the Music and Dance Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. He is a laureate from competitions such as Beethoven’s Hradec (2007), the International Rotary Piano Competition (2012) and the Chopin competition in Darmstadt (2013). He performs at the most significant festivals in the Czech Republic, but also on many other European and international stages. In 2014, he and his colleagues Jan Mráček and Ivan Vokáč from the Lobkowicz Trio received both the first prize and the audience prize at the Johannes Brahms competition in Pörtschach. In 2018, he won the 2nd prize at the Hans von Bülow Weltbewerb in the discipline of conducting from the piano. He has recently dedicated himself intensively to this specific discipline. He has performed under the batons of conductors such as Libor Pešek, Petr Vronský, Marko Ivanovič, Marek Šedivý and others. He records for Praga Digitals, Radioservis, Gramola, Naxos and others. He teaches at the Music and Dance Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and at the Prague City Grammar School and Music School.
The violinist Pavel Kuzmichev has recently performed very successfully on a number of European stages as both a soloist and a chamber ensemble player. He was born into an artistic family and commenced his violin career at the age of six in his native Kiev. He studied the violin at the Moscow Conservatory’s Central School of Music in 1987–1994. In 1994, he was accepted into the renowned P. I. Tchaikovsky Conservatory, for where he graduated in 1999 as a pupil of Professor M. Fedotov. After moving to Austria in 1999, he studied at the University of Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna. He is a laureate from many international competitions, especially in Russia and Austria, where he received, for example, the first prize in the Stefanie-Hohl competition. He has completed masterclasses with a number of renowned teachers, such as Professor M. Frischenschlager, Professor D. Schwarzberg and Professor J. Tomasek. His successful studies saw him received scholarships from the Professor J. Yankelevich Foundation (1992–1994) and the Herbert von Karajan Foundation (2003–2004). He has been a violinist with the Wiener Philharmoniker since 2004.
František Novotný is a graduate of the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno and has also studied the violin under the virtuosos and teachers Zakhar Bron and Viktor Treťjakov. He has received laureate titles and special mentions at more than twenty competitions. He is a winner of a RAI award from the Italian Radio and Television Corporation and a Henryk Wieniawski medal. He has an exceptionally wide repertoire and has performed concerts in Europe, Japan and the USA. He is a professor at the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno and the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, he teaches masterclasses and is active in the juries of international competitions. In 2023, he received the significant Kobushi-Shien Award in Japan for excellent concert performances and his long-term contribution to the arts. His performance of the finale of the Allegro assai vivace from the Korngold Concerto for violin and orchestra was chosen as the soundtrack for Season 4 of the mysterious series Stranger Things (Netflix). His latest album CON GRAZIA is yet another unique project. In addition to CDs, his recordings can also be found in the MP3 and FLAC formats on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer.
Matthias Schorn is an exceptionally multitalented musician with an unflagging interest in all music and creative activities. His position as the first clarinet at the Vienna State Opera and the Wiener Philharmoniker provides him with the opportunity to collaborate with the best contemporary singers, soloists and conductors. His chamber music performance partners have included Daniel Hope, Kit Armstrong, Daniel Müller-Schott, Alice Sara Ott, Vilde Frang, Igor Levit or Christoph Eschenbach. He has performed as a soloist with a number of renowned orchestras (the Wiener Philharmoniker, the London Mozart Players, the Münchner Kammerorchester etc.) under the batons of conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Christian Thielemann, Gustavo Dudamel and many others. He was the artistic director at the 2018 Festspielfrühling Rügen festival, has taught as a professor at the University of Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna since 2006 and holds masterclasses throughout the world. He cooperates with many artists across genres, including personalities such as the actors Armin Mueller-Stahl or Peter Simonischek.