Evening of Premieres
Programme:
- Lukáš SOMMER: Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra “Winter Haiku”
- Mikoláš TROUP: Masks, serenade for chamber orchestra (world premiere)
- Lukáš SOMMER: Symphony No. 1 “Atlantis” (world premiere)
K programu:
On 8 November, the Great Hall of the Casino Cultural House will enter the history of music as the venue for two world premieres by middle generation Czech composers Lukáš Sommer and Mikoláš Troup. In the past, a number of premieres have elicited stormy reactions from the audience, both negative and positive. How will these two works turn out? It is impossible to answer that in advance. What is certain, however, is that this is an extraordinary event. Guitarist and composer Lukáš Sommer has been successful in both fields of his work, he has even performed at the famous Carnegie Hall in New York, and his compositions have been commissioned by leading Czech performers and festivals. The music of the South Bohemian-born composer, pianist and organist Mikoláš Troup is sure to impress with its lightness, playfulness and danceability. Before the concert there will be a discussion with both composers at 6.30 pm.
Účinkující:
Lukáš Sommer – guitar, composer
Lukáš Sommer is a leading personality of the young generation of composers. His creative range includes both classical music and frequent arranging activities, and last but not least, he is the author of a unique original guitar recital.
As a guitarist he regularly performs in the Czech Republic and abroad (Milan, Modena, Dresden, Berlin, Sagunto, Madrid, Ischia, Washington, Procida, Florence, Liecester, New York, Amsterdam, etc.).
Last December, the prestigious William recording label released his debut album Savana! in collaboration with Triart and SONO records.
In 2011, he wrote the flute concerto Letter to my Father, commissioned by the Prague Spring Festival, thus becoming the youngest composer in the festival’s history. In 2017, Sommer’s composition won the prestigious Concorso Novaro competition in Florence, Italy.
In 2019, he was the only Czech guitarist to perform solo at the famed Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. In 2022, he will make his American debut at Carnegie Hall.
Mikoláš Troup – composer
Composer, organist and accompanist Mikoláš Troup (*1988 in Prachatice) studied organ at the Conservatory in České Budějovice with Jitka Chaloupková (2009) and music composition with Jiří Churáček (2010).
From 2013 to 2017 he held the position of regensor and principal organist of the Basilica of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary at Svatá Hora near Příbram. Since 2017 he has been the head of the music production in the opera ensemble of the South Bohemian Theatre.
In composition, his domain is vocal and vocal-instrumental compositions with spiritual themes, but he also composes chamber and symphonic music. In his compositions he often works with extra-musical stimuli (words, images, architecture, etc.) and strives for their direct dialogue with the musical component – e.g. The cycle Acts of Mercy for organ based on the motifs of colourful stained-glass churches, the vocal-instrumental cantata The Angels of Kratochvíle, which is a musical dialogue with a Renaissance chateau in South Bohemia, the symphonic poem Mystical Strawberries based on the books of František Kašpar or The Apple Tree, a concerto for piano and orchestra based on Genesis 32.
For the national celebration commemorating the 600th anniversary of the burning of Master Jan Hus, he composed the composition Appellatio ad supremum iudicem for mixed choir, which was performed by the Prague Singers on 5 July 2015 in the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague. In 2021, he composed the musical accompaniment for a large open-air celebration of the European Heritage Days in Olomouc, where his vocal-instrumental litanies Columna ignis based on the motifs of the local Baroque Holy Trinity Column were performed.
He also regularly composes works for the liturgy (ordinaria, proprio, vespers). He is the author of approximately one hundred arrangements of sacred and folk songs.
As a performer (organ, harpsichord, piano), he works in a wide range of styles, but mostly in music of the 16th-18th centuries and contemporary repertoire. He collaborates with ensembles focused on the learned interpretation of early music (Ritornello, Capella ornamentata, Literátské bratrstvo DNES), and regularly accompanies many excellent singers and instrumentalists on piano and organ (soprano Jana Šrejma Kačírková, baritone Svatopluk Sem, oboist Vladislav Borovka, violinists Bohuslav Matoušek and Vítězslav Ochman, etc.).
He has performed in concert a number of important compositions of modern world organ literature (complete cycles of Olivier Messiaen’s L’Ascension, La Nativité du Seigneur, Les Corps Glorieux and Messe de la Pentecôte, the complete organ works of Peter Eben and the cycle Contemplazioni per organo by Jan Hanus, etc.). He also performs as an organ improviser.
He is a laureate of the Prague Junior Note piano competition and a number of composer competitions (Opus ignotum, Opava cantat, Stonavská Barborka, etc.).
Martin Peschík – conductor
Martin Peschík studied piano and conducting at the Conservatory in České Budějovice. He graduated in conducting from the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno in the class of Prof. Jan Zbavitel. As a conductor he has collaborated with the National Theatre in Brno, the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra in Olomouc, the South Bohemian Chamber Philharmonic, the West Bohemian Symphony Orchestra in Mariánské Lázně and others. Since 2002 he has worked at the South Bohemian Theatre in České Budějovice as choirmaster and conductor and since January 2008 as chief conductor. He has staged many operas, operettas and ballets there (Rigoletto, Faust, The Love Potion, The Mouthpiece, Martha, Rusalka, Jacobin, The Gypsy Baron, The Bat, The Princess of Chardonnay, etc.). He has conducted in many European countries (Germany, Austria, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark) and at major music festivals (Janáček Brno 2004, Opera 2003 and 2005, Festival of Chamber Music Český Krumlov, etc.). In October 2011 Martin Peschík was appointed to the position of chief conductor of the West Bohemian Symphony Orchestra in Mariánské Lázně. From 2011 to 2016 he also held the position of the orchestra’s director.
