PRESS RELEASE Brno, 6 December 2018
Tickets for six selected concerts from the festival Moravian Autumn 2019 have been on sale since 3 December. “Although the 50th anniversary season of the festival takes place next October, we responded to urgent demand from our patrons, who have been asking us since the summer when we would start selling tickets,” said the Brno Philharmonic director, Marie Kučerová.
As expected, so far the greatest interest is in the concluding concert, a symbolic celebration of the 75th birthdays of the Brno Philharmonic chief conductor, Dennis Russell Davies, and the Hungarian conductor and composer, Peter Eötvös. At their joint performance with the Philharmonic, Eötvös will conduct works that have influenced him in his musical life, and Davies will conduct music by Eötvös himself. “Besední dům will see a unique encounter that is not to be missed,” noted the festival’s programmer, Vítězslav Mikeš.
The festival will offer nearly twenty events and concerts at various venues: halls, churches, cafés, a cinema and a theatre. “We are currently negotiating a special concert to introduce the festival, which will bring to Brno a world-famous star from a different genre from classical music. But as this is still unconfirmed, I cannot divulge more,” Kučerová remarked.
“Tickets are also on sale for an evening we call the Dance of the Sun. David Greilsammer, who captivated the audience at last year’s festival as a pianist, will perform this time as conductor of his own chamber ensemble, Geneva Camerata, with a music-and-dance project, the Dance of the Sun, which has been applauded throughout the world,” observed Lucie Šnajdrová, the festival manager. The choreography, which involves all members of the orchestra in the dance, has been created by Juan Kruz Díaz de Garaio Esnaola, a Spanish dancer and choreographer who ranks among the world’s leading figures of modern dance.
Another of the six concerts for which tickets are now available is entitled Versailles, in which Alexandre Tharaud, a pianist of world renown, presents a programme of works by celebrated as well as lesser-known composers linked with Versailles. Another world-famous pianist, Piotr Anderszewski, will visit Brno with the Basel Chamber Orchestra. You can also buy tickets for two evenings entitled Weinberg 100, in which all six of Weinberg’s sonatas for violin and piano will be performed by Ladislav Fanzowitz and Milan Paľa.
Tickets are available at the Ticket Office in Besední Street, at Dům pánů z Lipé and online at filharmonie-brno.cz/moravsky-podzim/. Prices for selected concerts start at 200 Kč.
About Moravian Autumn festival
The programme of the 50th Moravian Autumn reflects the roots of the festival; it does not return to them in a retrospective way, but seeks new impulses from them. First held in 1966 as the Brno International Music Festival, the event began with a daring concept, never before seen in the country. It offered a representative selection of Bohuslav Martinů’s works, a composer recognised internationally but eclipsed or even supressed domestically for political reasons. Over several following years, the festival was dedicated to broader musical themes, focusing on carefully conceived programmes of ancient, chamber, vocal and Slavic music, as well as comparisons of Czech and European works. “We shall hear Bohuslav Martinů’s songs and choral works and enjoy the Czech premiere of André Gide’s play Oedipus with its original incidental music. Also connected with Martinů is the festival’s focus on French music – marking the double anniversary of the French Revolution (1789–1799) – and the invitation we have extended to the Basel Chamber Orchestra, which continues the tradition of Paul Sacher’s celebrated ensemble, with which Martinů was closely linked,” noted the programmer, Vítězslav Mikeš.
The festival commemorates a number of important anniversaries: we will mark 60 years since Martinů’s death; for Mieczysław Weinberg’s centenary, we will hear the complete cycle of his six sonatas for violin and piano; E.F. Burian’s double anniversary (1904-1959); the centenary of Masaryk University; and more.
Distinctive international and domestic artists will perform at the festival, including Piotr Anderszewski and the Basel Chamber Orchestra, David Greilsammer and his Geneva Camerata (Lully’s suite Le Bourgeois gentilhomme with new choreography), Peter Eötvös and Dennis Russell Davies with the Brno Philharmonic, Alexandre Tharaude, the Martinů Voices with Lukáš Vasilek, the Tiburtina Ensemble with Barbora Kabátková (Couperin’s Messe propre pour les couvents), Il Festino with Dagmar Šašková, and Milan Paľa with Ladislav Fanzowitz.
