Opening Concert

Date and time:

Tuesday, April 21, 2026, from 7 p.m.

Venue:

Martinů Hall, Academy of Performing Arts, Faculty of Music and Dance (Liechtenstein Palace)

Malostranské nám. 13, Praha 1

TICKETS

The opening concert of the festival, held in the prestigious setting of one of Prague’s most beautiful neoclassical concert halls, will present a unique dramaturgical concept for this musical event: under the artistic “auspices” of Viktor Ullmann, today one of the most respected masters of 20th-century music, to present to the audience rediscovered works by unjustly forgotten composers of interwar Czechoslovakia, the vast majority of whom were victims of Nazi persecution, with an overlap into the post-war period and contemporary music. And it does so in attractive instrumental combinations. After Ullmann’s String Quartet and Haas’s Wind Quintet, which have already become somewhat familiar on our stages and in gramophone recordings, the main discovery of this concert will be Rudolf Karl’s Nonet, the last pupil of Antonín Dvořák, a prominent Czechoslovak composer in the 1920s and 1930s, who died in March 1945 in the Small Fortress at Terezín as a participant in the anti-Nazi resistance. After the war, his name and work disappeared completely from our musical life. The Wind and String Nonet is his last composition, created shortly before his death in his cell in Pankrác. It has not been heard on Czech stages for many years.

About performers

Fama Q – string quartet

is currently one of the best Czech quartets. Its players are members of leading Czech orchestras and share a passion for chamber and quartet music. The quartet regularly performs compositions mainly by contemporary authors, both modern classics of the 20th century and contemporary Czech and European composers. The ensemble also often performs world premieres of compositions by young Czech and foreign composers. However, Fama Q does not neglect the traditional quartet repertoire. At last year’s festival, it gave an outstanding concert from the demanding quartet repertoire of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Kalabis Quintet – wind quintet

is a female wind quintet founded in 2012 at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. The ensemble’s name is a tribute to composer Viktor Kalabis — the quintet adopted it after winning the Viktor Kalabis Prize competition in Semmering, with the consent of his wife, harpsichordist Zuzana Růžičková. Since then, the Kalabis Quintet has established itself as a leading Czech chamber ensemble specializing in contemporary music. It has won a number of prestigious awards and regularly performs at major venues in the Czech Republic and abroad. This will be its first appearance at the ULLMANNOVSKÉ SLAVNOSTI festival.