Instead of its live program, the Czech Philharmonic presented four streamed concerts, one for each Sunday of the Advent, the first of which was conducted by Sir John Elliot Gardiner. On the heels of this holiday concert series, however, the leading Czech orchestra had to cancel all live concerts until February.
Sir John Elliot Gardiner conducted the Czech Philharmonic on the first Sunday of the Advent, having chosen a program of Czech composers Voříšek, Janáček and Martinů. The next Sunday saw a visit from conductor Manfred Honeck, who paid homage to Beethoven and accompanied Rudolf Buchbinder’s Mozart concerto. The third and fourth streamed concerts were conducted by Petr Altrichter and Tomáš Netopil, respectively. These concerts were streamed on Czech Television (ČTArt) and Facebook and moderated, as is the custom, by moderator Marek Eben.
Today, after its last Advent concert, the Czech Philharmonic announced it would be cancelling all public concerts in January and February, including most of next month’s European concert tour with Semyon Bychkov (with the exception of Vienna and Paris on January 8th and 9th respectively, which have not yet been cancelled.)
The Czech Philharmonic’s next livestream will be its annual New Years concert, which will also serve as a celebration of the orchestra’s 125th anniversary, on January 1st, under the baton of Tomáš Netopil. The program will consist exclusively of Czech composers, from a world premiere by Jan Kučera to Antonín Dvořák’s greatest hits. The stream will be accessible worldwide on the orchestra’s Facebook page.
