Date and time:
Sunday, April 26, 2026, from 6 p.m.
Venue:
Synagogue Schomre Schabos
Božkova 154/16, Český Těšín
Program
- Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942): Five Songs, Op. 32
- Jan Dušek (*1985) – Three Sorrowful Songs for sopran, tenor and piano (after poems by Oldřich Böhm) – composition commissioned by the festival (world premiere)
- Karl Horwitz (1884-1925): Six Poems, Op. 4 (Czech premiere)
- Rudolf Karel (1880-1945): In the Glow of the Hellenic Sun, Op. 24
- Sylva Smejkalová (*1974): A la faveur de la nuit (based on texts by Robert Desnos)
- Viktor Ullmann: Five Love Songs by Ricarda Huch, Op. 2
Performers
- Irena Troupová (Czech Republic) – soprano
- Ondřej Holub (Czech Republic) – tenor
- Jan Dušek (Czech Republic) – piano
The closing concert of this year’s Ullmann Festival takes us back to our roots – both to the place where the festival originated and to Viktor Ullmann’s birthplace. The synagogue in Český Těšín, which has already hosted a number of festival concerts, will once again resound with a purely song program under the eloquent title “Their Music Lives On.” This program will include works by composers who, like Ullmann, did not survive Nazi persecution, as well as by two contemporary composers inspired by the fate of persecuted artists. Erwin Schulhoff and Viktor Ullmann, both Jews, became victims of the Holocaust (albeit under different circumstances), while Karl Horwitz, also a Jewish composer from Vienna, was “spared” this fate only because he died in 1925 as a result of a serious illness… His song cycle, recently discovered by Irena Troupová and to be performed in its Czech premiere at the concert, will be the first dramaturgical surprise of the evening. Although Rudolf Karel was not of Jewish origin, as a participant in the anti-Nazi resistance in Czechoslovakia, he was first imprisoned for almost two years in Pankrác, and then transferred to the Small Fortress in Terezín, where he died in March 1945 as a result of physical exhaustion. To a certain extent, the French poet and resistance fighter Robert Desnos shared a similar fate with Karel. His verses were set to music by the prominent contemporary Czech composer Sylva Smejkalová. After imprisonment in France and Germany, Desnos was also transported to Terezín at the end of the war. He lived to see its liberation in May 1945, but died a month later as a result of typhoid fever. The closing concert of the ULLMANN FESTIVAL will also feature a world premiere: commissioned by the festival, composer Jan Dušek created a song cycle for two voices and piano based on poems by Oldřich Böhm (1906–1944), yet another of the countless and hitherto unknown victims of the Holocaust in the Bohemian lands.
About performers
Irena Troupová – soprano
Leading Czech soprano Irena Troupová first gained international renown in the field of historically informed performance of early music (which she has also been teaching for many years at JAMU in Brno). Gradually, however, she has also included in her repertoire compositions mainly by German-speaking composers from Bohemia in the 19th and 20th centuries (especially Jewish ones), many of which she discovered herself, but she also performs works by contemporary Czech composers. In 2015, she and Jan Dušek were the first in the Czech Republic to make a complete recording of songs for soprano and piano by Viktor Ullmann, followed six years later by a similar recording of works by another Prague Jewish composer, Hans Winterberg. Irena Troupová and Jan Dušek also performed at the very first concert of our festival in November 2018 and have appeared with a similar repertoire on many Czech, German, and Austrian stages in recent years.
Ondřej Holub – tenor
is a Czech tenor who has been involved in music and singing since childhood, first as a member of the Kühn Children’s Choir and the Pueri gaudentes boys’ choir. As an adult, he studied classical singing privately with Prof. Lenka Pištěcká, then at the Prague Conservatory with Prof. Valentin Prolat, and later developed his singing skills with Prof. Jiří Kotouč. Holub also devotes himself to the interpretation of early music and performs in the Czech Republic and abroad with a number of renowned ensembles of this genre (Schola Gregoriana Pragensis, Collegium Marianum, Cappella Mariana, Musica Florea, etc.). At the same time, he also interprets vocal compositions by 20th- and 21st-century composers. Together with Jan Dušek, for example, he performed Rudolf Karel’s song cycle In the Glow of the Hellenic Sun and his anti-Nazi songs from prison at the Music Resistance Against the Protectorate festival in Berlin in June 2024.
Jan Dušek – piano
is a Czech composer and pianist who strives to connect tradition with the present in both of his fields. In his compositions, he combines emotional depth with precise craftsmanship, appealing to performers and a wide audience alike – from experts to ordinary listeners. While still a student at HAMU in Prague, his works were recognized in several composition competitions, and his compositions have been performed by leading figures on the Czech and international music scene. His piano composition Waiting for Dawn. Hommage à Viktor Ullmann premiered at the third edition of our festival in 2022. His pianistic work, focused mainly on modern music, is also very broad and diverse, ranging from solo performances to chamber music; he is particularly sought after as a piano partner in singers’ song programs. He made a unique recording of the complete piano works of Rudolf Karel for Czech Radio and, together with Irena Troupová, released an internationally acclaimed album of songs by Viktor Ullmann (2025) and a complete collection of songs by Hans Winterberg (2021). In June 2024, he performed with Ondřej Holub at the Music Resistance Against the Protectorate festival in Berlin, where they presented songs and piano works by Rudolf Karel, some of which were world premieres.
