Wedding Shirts – Dvořák & Brauner

Soprano Lucie Silkenová graduated from the Prague Academy of Performing Arts in the class of Ivan Kusnier and also attended master classes in England, Spain, Germany and Austria. Her competition successes include 1st prize at the Concours International d’Encouragement in Lyon, France (2008) and 2nd prize at the Antonín Dvořák International Singing Competition in Karlovy Vary (2009). In 2013 she was a semi-finalist in the Hans Gabor Belvedere Competition. Since 2010, she has been a regular guest at the National Theatre in Prague and has also performed at opera houses in Liberec, Pilsen and Ostrava. Prague FOK, Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, etc. He has also recorded for Czech Radio, Navona Records and Arco Diva.

Tenor Aleš Voráček was born in České Budějovice. He studied singing at the local conservatory under Vítězslava Bobáková. Since his first year at the conservatory he has been a guest at the opera of the South Bohemian Theatre in České Budějovice and in 2005 he started a permanent engagement there. He created a number of operatic and operetta roles there, e.g.Nemorino (Donizetti: The Drink of Love), Almaviva (Rossini: The Friar of Seville), Mozart’s Ferrando (Così fan tutte) and Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), Adolfo (Lortzing: Rehearsal for an Opera), Lionel (Flotow: Martha), Vitek (Smetana: The Secret), Dvořák’s George (Jacobin) and Prince (Rusalka), in which he also appeared on the summer stage of the revolving auditorium in Český Krumlov, the Postman (Martinů: The Day of Charity), Max (Weber: The Magician) and Ernesto (Donizetti: Don Pasquale). From the operetta roles we should mention Edwin (Kálmán: The Princess of Chardonnay). He has also been a guest at the National Theatre in Brno, for which he performed the role of Idamante (Mozart: Idomeneo). His name appeared in the broader nomination for the 2006 Thalia Award for Operetta and Musical for the role of Edwin in The Princess of Chardonnay. At the National Theatre in Prague, he has guest-starred as Smetana’s Vít (The Secret) and Vasek (The Bartered Bride), Dvořák’s Jirka in The Devil and Kate and Jiří in Jacobin, or as Mozart’s Monostatos in Die Zauberflöte. He regularly appears in concert, for example with the Prague Philharmonic in Schumann’s Requiem or with Jiří Bělohlávek and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in concert performances of The Bartered Bride and Jacobin at London’s Barbican Hall.

Ivan Kusnjer was born in Rokycany in 1951. After graduating from the industrial school in Plzeň, he studied at the Faculty of Music of the Prague Academy of Performing Arts under Teodor Šrubař, where he graduated in 1975. In 1988 he began working as a teacher at the same school (HAMU). In 2011 he successfully defended his associate professorship and then in 2016 he defended his professorship.

He has performed opera roles in Ostrava and Brno. In 1982, he began working as a soloist at the National Theatre in Prague.He participated in master classes at the Accademia Sigiana in Siena and the Accademia Santa Cecilia in Rome.

He has performed in opera and concert venues around the world, including La Scala in Milan, Carnegie Hall in New York, Opéra-Comique and Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, Opéra national de Lorraine in Nancy, Vienna State Opera, La Monnaie in Brussels and Berlin State Opera. He has received honorary mentions at festivals in Cagliari, Hong Kong, Tel Aviv, Frankfurt am Main and Gothenburg. Ivan Kusnjer is the founder of the Fatum foundation, supporting the families of deceased musicians.

The mixed choir Čerchovan has been continuously active in Domažlice since its foundation in 1901. At present it consists of over forty singers. Marek Vorlicek has been its leader since 1997. Čerchovan deals mainly with sacred music, but does not shy away from stylized medieval music, spirituals or opera. The repertoire includes, of course, choral arrangements of folk songs.

When performing vocal-instrumental works, the choir cooperates with various orchestras and professional soloists. The choir has also performed several times with the Pilsen Philharmonic Orchestra and in recent years has been regularly invited to collaborate with the West Bohemian Symphony Orchestra in Mariánské Lázně. In 2010, the choir performed Ryba’s Czech Christmas Mass at the invitation of the Embassy of the Czech Republic to the Holy See in St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice Square in Rome. In 2001, the choir recorded a CD with Stabat Mater by Jakub Jan Ryba and Requiem in C minor by Georg Lickel. Both works were recorded in world premieres. In 2005 a second CD was released with sacred compositions by Jakub Jan Ryba and Magnificat by Simon Brixi. In the last two decades, the choir’s repertoire has expanded to include a number of vocal-instrumental works, such as Mozart’s Coronation Mass and Requiem, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Charpentier’s, Rejch’s and Dvořák’s Te Deum, the same author’s Stabat Mater, Fauré’s Requiem, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, Haydn’s Creation and Handel’s Messiah.

Tomáš Brauner was born in 1978 in Prague. He studied oboe and conducting at the Prague State Conservatory. In 2005 he graduated from the Music Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts, majoring in conducting. He then studied at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna. In 2010, he was a laureate of the Dimitris Mitropoulos International Conducting Competition in Athens.
He began his career as an opera conductor at the J. K. Tyl Theatre in Pilsen. In 2008 he made his debut at the Prague State Opera with a performance of Verdi’s Otello. This was followed by Massenet’s Don Quichotte, Rossini’s Lazebnik di Siviglia, Puccini’s La bohème and Tosca, Verdi’s Nabucco, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Bizet’s Carmen. He conducts Verdi’s La Traviata at the National Theatre in Prague. He is a regular guest at the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre in Ostrava. At the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City he conducted Janáček’s Her Shepherdess. Among ballet productions, he has staged Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Jarré the Divine Bell Jarl and Adam’s Giselle. He has also been invited to major international festivals, such as Bad Kissingen, the Richard Strauss Festival in Garmisch Parten-Kirchen, where he was invited to perform the Alpine Symphony together with the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra at the opening concert for the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss. In 2018, he conducted the Prague Symphony Orchestra on tours in Munich and Poznan. In 2020-21, he recorded with the FOK Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances, compositions by Karel Husa (including the legendary Music for Prague 1968) and piano concertos by Sergei Rachmaninov with Lukáš Vondráček. In August 2022 he made his debut at the Elbe Philharmonic in Hamburg. In 2023, he will perform with the FOK in Munich and Wiesbaden, among other places.