courtesy IMG Artists
The Czech Philharmonic will be streaming its New Year’s Gala Concert live from the Dvořák Hall of Prague’s Rudolfinum on Saturday evening. This performance of magical Viennese music is led by Manfred Honeck, and stars Kyrgyz soprano Katharina Konradi and French horn player Radek Baborák.
Viennese music has come to symbolise our New Year celebrations and the programme, appropriately, features some of the best – from composers like Johann Strauss II, Franz Lehár, Franz von Suppé, Richard Strauss and Josef Strauss. Included are the Waltz King’s Overture to Die Fledermaus and Wiener Blut, Lehár’s Vilja from The Merry Widow and the Gold and Silver Waltz, von Suppé’s Poet and Peasant Overture, Richard Strauss’s Moonlight Music from Capriccio, and Josef Strauss’s Dragonfly polka and mazurka.
Maestro Honeck – regarded as one of the world’s leading conductors – has served as Music Director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra for over a decade, a partnership which has received several Grammy nominations as well as a 2018 Grammy Award in the Best Orchestral Performance category. A former Principal Guest Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic, Manfred Honeck has led some of the most prestigious of the world’s orchestras – the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Staatskapelle Dresden, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Accademia di Santa Cecilia Rome and the Vienna Philharmonic – and is a frequent guest conductor with the major American orchestras.
Katharina Konradi has been a member of the Hamburg State Opera since 2018, and has also appeared with Semperoper in Dresden, at the Bayreuth Festival, and with the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. Known as a concert soloist, and particularly for her lied interpretation, Ms Konradi has appeared with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. This year she performed at the traditional ZDF Advent Concert with the Staatskapelle Dresden, and has just completed the BBC New Generation Artists programme.
Radek Baborák has served as principal French horn for the Berlin, Munich and Czech philharmonics. Also a conductor, he founded the Czech Sinfonietta, is Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Prague Chamber Soloists, is Chief Guest Conductor of the Yamagata Symphony Orchestra, and this year became the Chief Conductor of the West-Bohemian Symphony Orchestra. His repertoire is wide, including music of the Baroque, Classical and Romantic eras, as well as composers of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Manfred Honeck leads the Czech Philharmonic in a New Year’s Gala Concert in the Dvořák Hall, in Prague’s Rudolfinum at 8.00 pm (CET) on Saturday, 1st January, 2022. For more information on the concert, visit the Czech Philharmonic website where there’s a link to book tickets online.
This concert will also be streamed live on Facebook.
Information sourced from:
Czech Philharmonic programme notes
Artists’ websites