First round jury
Introducing the jury of the 1st round of Concertino Praga 2025
THE JURY OF SOLO CATEGORY I
The solo harpist of the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, Lydie Härtelová, graduated from the Music and Dance Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. She has made seventy solo and chamber recordings for Czech Radio, Munich Radio, Supraphon, Panton, ECM, Ligia Digital, MusicVars, Navona Records and NP Records. She has taught the harp at the Prague Conservatory since 2012. She is a feature of harp competition juries and in 2019 she chaired the international jury for the Concertino Praga radio competition. She is a member of the Trio cantabile and Trigonum musicum chamber music ensembles. She also cooperates with Czech Radio as the author of programs and during the initial publication of unknown compositions by the radio publishing house. In 1986, she established and still leads the “Naši pěvci” mixed church choir, with which she has frequently performed abroad (England, France, Germany and Switzerland). To date, “Naši pěvci” has released four independent albums and contributed to the creation of several others. The choir has frequently cooperated with Czech Television, Czech Radio and the BBC.
The pianist Karel Košárek graduated from the conservatory in Kroměříž and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. He completed his studies in the USA (SMU Dallas), where he acquired an Artist Certificate and the title Master in Music. He is a winner of the International Smetana Piano Competition and the International Young Artist Competition in Corpus Christi and a laureate of the Walter Naumburg Competition in New York. His international artistic activities have been documented in recent seasons by recitals in New York, Dallas, Calgary, Tel Aviv, Saint Petersburg and Bangkok, as well as by concert performances in Europe and Japan. He also performs at international music festivals and cooperates with leading orchestras, including the Czech Philharmonic, the Prague Philharmonia, the Prague Symphony Orchestra or Sinfonietta Cracovia. His recordings have been released by Supraphon, Hyperion, Etcetera, Naxos, Navona records and Radioservis. He has accompanied Magdalena Kožená, Krystian Adam, Roman Janál, Richard Novák, Jana Boušková, Radek Baborák, Václav Hudeček and Soňa Červená at a number of concerts.
The violinist Jan Mráček has been one of the most distinctive talents of his generation since his childhood. He became the youngest laureate of the 2010 Prague Spring International Competition and in 2014 he received the first prize at the Fritz Kreisler International Violin Competition in Vienna. In 2011, he became the youngest soloist at the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra and was invited to take up the post of concert master by Jiří Bělohlávek. He performs solo concerts around the world and has performed, for example, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Slovak and Slovenian Philharmonic or the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra in the Zurich Tonhalle. He has had the honour of cooperating with conductors such as Maxim Vengerov, James Judd, Manuel López-Gómez, Petr Altrichter, Tomáš Brauner, Ondrej Lenárd, Jac van Steen or Vladimir Fedoseev. He received the 3rd prize at the Antonín Dvořák Chamber Music Competition with the Lobkowicz Trio in 2014 and the 1st prize and the audience prize at the Johannes Brahms International Music Competition in Pörtschach, Austria in September of the same year.
The Violoncellist Vít Petrášek graduated from the Prague Conservatory and the Musikhochschule Luzern. He is the holder of the prestigious Edwin Fischer Preis and a two-time winner of the violoncello competition in Liezen, Austria. He has worked as a soloist with, amongst others, the Luzerner Sinfonie Orchester, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra or the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic. He is a founding member of the Epoque Quartet, which celebrated 25 years of its existence in 2024. Throughout this period, the ensemble has become a fixture on the Czech and European music scene, significantly advanced the boundaries of the quartet repertoire and become a top-flight ensemble that is invited to work with a range of excellent musicians from numerous musical branches.
Petr Strejc has played the violin since he was five. In 2008, he graduated from the conservatory in Pardubice and in 2016 he graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Hradec Králové, where he studied musical education and playing the violin. He continued his musical education at the Prague Conservatory, where he graduated in composition from MgA. Jiří Gemrot’s class. In 2024, he completed his studies at the Academy of the Musical Arts in Prague in the field of musical direction. He has been active at Czech Radio as a music director since 2019. He plays with musical ensembles such as the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Hradec Králové Philharmonic or the Janáček Philharmonic in Ostrava. He is a member of staff at the Habrman Primary Arts School in Hradec Králové, where he teaches the violin and the viola. He is also involved in composing and arranging.
THE JURY OF SOLO CATEGORY II
The clarinettist Karel Dohnal is a laureate from a number of international competitions, has recorded several CDs with both solo and chamber repertoires and is a member of the PhilHarmonia Octet, the Amadeus Trio and the orchestra of the State Opera in Prague. He works as a teacher at the Faculty of the Arts at Ostrava University and regularly leads courses both here and abroad. He is a very well regarded and popular performer of modern music and has premiered and initiated the creation of a number of solo and chamber works by contemporary composers. He has recently performed as a solo artist with Bamberg Symphony and the Essen Philharmonic, amongst others.
Vladimír Rejlek graduated in playing the trumpet from the Conservatory and the Academy of the Performing Arts in Prague. In 1978, he won the Prague Spring international competition and in 2016 he was the chairman of the jury for the same competition in the trumpet category. He has already been a member of the international jury for the Concertino Praga festival several times. His wide concert repertoire includes works from all stylistic periods and he regularly appears on concert stages both here and abroad. He has been the head of the trumpet group at the Opera Orchestra of the National Theatre in Prague since 1974. In addition to solo concerts, he is also involved in teaching at the Academy of the Performing Arts in Prague, where he was appointed a professor in 2009. His is currently the head of the Wind Instrument Department at the Music and Dance Faculty of the Academy of the Performing Arts in Prague.
Conductor Marek Šedivý (born in 1987 in Prague) has been Music Director of the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre in Ostrava since 2020, where he has conducted a number of new productions: The Tempest (Z. Fibich), Masked Ball (G. Verdi), Tosca (G. Puccini), The Kiss, The Bartered Bride, The Two Widows, The Devil’s Wall (B. Smetana) and Tannhäuser (R. Wagner). From 2018 to 2022 he was the principal guest conductor of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra. From 2016 to 2018 he was the chief conductor of the Silesian Theatre in Opava, where he conducted operas Cavalleria rusticana (P. Mascagni), Rusalka (A. Dvořák), Falstaff (G. Verdi) and The Cunning Little Vixen (L. Janáček). In December 2022, he made his debut at the National Theatre in Prague with a performance of The barber of Seville (G. Rossini) and was subsequently invited to collaborate on a new production of The Marriage of Figaro (W. A. Mozart). He has performed at the international music festivals Prague Spring (2015, 2018, 2021), Chopin Festival Mariánské Lázně (2009), Young Prague (2011), Dvořák Prague Festival (2012, 2020), Pardubice Music Spring (2016 and 2018), Mozartfest Würzburg (2016) and Internationale Gluck Opern Festspiele Nürnberg (2014 and 2016). In September 2019 he made his debut in Vienna with the Tonkünstler Orchestra, where he performed Requiem by A. Dvořák. In the 2012/13 season, on the recommendation of Jiří Bělohlávek, he was engaged as assistant conductor for the Canadian Opera Company Toronto production of Tristan und Isolde by R. Wagner. In January 2015, he recorded two piano concertos (Nos. 1 and 4) by Ludwig van Beethoven for Sony with Chinese pianist Fang Yuan and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Marek Šedivý was the artistic director of Ensemble Terrible, which focuses on contemporary music of young composers. He graduated from the Prague Conservatory and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague in conducting. In 2017 he was awarded the Wagner Society Bayreuther Festspiele Scholarship 2017.
The French horn player Jan Vobořil studied at the Conservatory in Brno and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. He has since become a laureate in seven national competitions. He is the solo horn player at the Czech Philharmonic and the head of the French horn group. He was previously the solo horn player at the Brno State Philharmonia and the PKF ‒ Prague Philharmonia. He has performed as a soloist both at home and abroad (Germany, Austria, France, Japan and the USA) under the batons of Jiří Bělohlávek, John Eliot Gardiner, Petr Altrichter, Jakub Hrůša etc. He has also worked with leading domestic orchestras as a soloist, including the Czech Philharmonic. He receives invitations to play with many international orchestras as a horn player; the NDR Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Bamberger Symphoniker, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig etc. He has worked with conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Simon Rattle, Semyon Bychkov, Seiji Ozawa, Wolfgang Sawallisch etc. He has recorded for Czech Radio and Television, Supraphon, German ARD television, Japanese Octavia Records and English Classicprint etc. He is a member of the Prague Wind Quintet and the Czech Horn Quartet.
The flautist Žofie Vokálková graduated from the Prague Conservatory in 1992. She has received, amongst other things, the 1st prize at the Concertino Praga competition and the Prize of the City of Prague at the Prague Spring. In 2000, she was the first European woman to receive the Special Prize at the prestigious Web Concert Hall Competition in New York. She held the position of the first flute and soloist at the Virtuosi di Praga orchestra and the Prague Symphony Orchestra. She has completed a number of solo concerts with both Czech and international orchestras (France, Germany, Greece, Spain, Austria, the USA and Japan) and is a frequent guest at significant festivals, including the Prague Spring. In 2009, she was selected by the prestigious American ConcertArtist agency to perform in the USA. In recent years, she has also been a sought after flautist in national and international competitions. She is presently involved in an extensive project mapping out the work of female composers. She has taught at the Prague Conservatory and regularly takes masterclasses. She has more than ten CDs to her name.