The main theme of this year’s festival is the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Sir Charles Mackerras. Moravian Autumn commemorates him not only through Mackerras’s relationship with Czech music, but in a much more comprehensive form: it invites to Brno important British ensembles with which Sir Charles Mackerras worked closely at various stages of his career, either as chief conductor or as a regular guest conductor (Scottish Chamber Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra and Orchestra & Choir of the Age of Enlightenment), and captures the admirable breadth of his repertoire (in addition to Czech music, this includes English music and the legacy of old masters such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and George Frideric Handel).
The Opening Concert will also feature the second ever ceremonial presentation of the Charles Mackerras Prize, awarded every ten years by the Leoš Janáček Foundation to a young conductor under the age of 40 for their contribution to the promotion of Czech music, especially the music of Janáček.