Czech Philharmonic Orchestra

Petr Altrichter made his debut with the Czech Philharmonic in 1979, and has subsequently conducted the Orchestra on numerous occasions in Prague, on tour in China and most recently in Germany.

Altrichter studied French horn and conducting at the Conservatory of Music in Ostrava, before moving to Brno to study orchestral and choral conducting at the Jan??ek Academy. In 1976 he took second place at the famous conducting competition in Besan?on and won the special
prize of the French National Composers’ Union. His professional career began as Assistant Conductor for the Brno State Philharmonic; in subsequent years he worked at the Czech Philharmonic as assistant to V?clav Neumann, and at the philharmonics in Zl?n, Pardubice, and again in Brno.
In 1987 Altrichter transferred to Prague Symphony Orchestra as Associate Conductor, and later Chief Conductor. He was Music Director of S?dwestdeutsche Philharmonie (1993-2004); Chief Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic (1997-2001); Chief Conductor of the Brno Philharmonic (2002-2009); and has guest conducted orchestras on three continents including the London Philharmonic, the Japan Symphony Orchestra and the RTL Luxembourg Symphony Orchestra. He has also appeared at festivals in Athens, Cheltenham, Chicago, Edinburgh, Madrid, Paris, Vienna, Zurich and with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic at the BBC Proms.

Alice Sara Ott is truly a modern artist of our time. Every season she reaches out to her audience with different and exciting projects. Following the very successful collaboration with Icelandic composer ?lafur Arnalds (The Chopin Project reached No.1 in the official UK classical chart and the iTunes chart in 25 countries), in the 2016/17 season she will release her eighth Deutsche Grammophon album, Wonderland. The album includes Grieg’s Piano Concerto, recorded with Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunk and Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Grieg’s Lyric Pieces. In autumn 2016 she will tour the Wonderland project to Japan with nine performances across the country, including at Tokyo Opera City, and continuing to Taiwan and China in winter 2017. Then in the following spring she will bring the programme to Europe for performances in Berlin, Munich, Oslo, Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Dusseldorf.
Alice has worked with the world’s leading conductors and orchestras, including Lorin Maazel, Gustavo Dudamel, Charles Dutoit, Pablo Heras-Casado, Paavo J?rvi, Neeme J?rvi, Ginandrea Noseda, Andres Orozco-Estrada, Sakari Oramo, Osmo V?nsk?, Vasily Petrenko, Myung-Whun Chung, Hannu Lintu and Robin Ticciati and orchestras such as Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Royal Philharmonic and London Symphony orchestras and Wiener Symphoniker. This season she will perform with St Petersburg Philharmonic (Yuri Temirkanov), Washington’s National Symphony (Edo de Waart) and Royal Scottish National orchestras, and tours with the Philharmonia Orchestra (Vladimir Ashkenazy) and NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester (Krzystof Urba?ski).

Aside from her performances, Alice has established strong relationships with a number of leading brands worldwide. As well as being the Brand Ambassador for Technics, the hi-fi audio brand of Panasonic Corporation, Alice has personally designed a signature line of high-end leather bags for JOST Bags, one of Germany’s most stylish, contemporary and premium brands. Her designs include origami elements, reflecting her Japanese heritage, and the inside of the bags will also feature Alice’s hand drawn designs. Her passion for origami can also be seen in her new album, she has created the entire video clip from her origami designs. Alice’s creative talent reaches to smartphones too, she has created her own stickers for one of the most popular communication apps, LINE, available for worldwide download.

Why does the Czech Philharmonic still sound so different?
“One reason is that this hall requires a special sort of playing. The other,more important one is that all or 99 per cent of our musicians are Czech and
trained here. So that’s the source of our special sound and we are trying to keep it.”
Ji?? B?lohl?vek, Chief Conductor 2012-2017
in conversation with The Times, 2 April 2016

The 121 year-old Czech Philharmonic gave its first concert ? an all Dvo??k programme which included the world premi?re of his Biblical Songs, Nos. 1-5 conducted by the composer himself – in the famed Rudolfinum Hall on 4 January 1896. Acknowledged for its definitive interpretations of Czech composers, whose music the Czech Philharmonic has championed since its formation, the Orchestra is also recognised for the special history it has with the music of Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Mahler, who conducted the Orchestra in the world premi?re of his Symphony No. 7 in Prague in 1908.
The Czech Philharmonic’s extraordinary and proud history reflects both its location at the very heart of Europe and the Czech Republic’s turbulent political history, for which Smetana’s M? vlast (My Homeland) has become a potent symbol. The Orchestra gave its first full rendition of M? vlast in a brewery in Sm?chov in 1901 and, in 1929, under its then Chief Conductor V?clav Talich, it was the first work that the Orchestra committed to disc, in a recording that took 10 separate records. During the Nazi occupation, when Goebbels demanded that the Orchestra perform in Berlin and Dresden, Talich put the entire M? vlast on the programme as an act of defiance.
Four decades later in 1990, M? vlast was the work chosen by Kubel?k to celebrate Czechoslovakia’s first free elections.

Throughout the Orchestra’s history, two elements have remained at the core of its ethos: its championing of Czech composers and its belief in music’s power to change lives. Defined from its inauguration as ‘an organisation for the enhancement of musical art in Prague, and a pension organisation for the members of the National Theatre Orchestra in Prague, its widows and orphans’, the proceeds from the four concerts that it performed each year helped to fund members of the orchestra who could no longer play, as well as the immediate survivors of deceased musicians.
As early as the 1920’s, V?clav Talich (Chief Conductor 1919-1941) pioneered concerts for workers, young people and other voluntary organisations including the Red Cross, the Czechoslovak Sokol and the Union of Slavic Women and gave three benefit concerts for Russian, Austrian and German orchestral players in 1923. The philosophy continues today, and is every bit as vibrant. A comprehensive education strategy engages with more than 400 schools, bringing children of all ages ? some of whom travel up to four hours – to hear concerts and participate in masterclasses in the Rudolfinum. The programme extends to university students and a recently launched Czech Philharmonic’s Orchestral Academy; together with an inspirational summer programme that collaborates with Romany communities in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

In the early years of his tenure V?clav Talich led the Orchestra through a detailed inventory of Czech music, including the world premi?res of
Martin?’s Czech Rhapsody (1919); Martin?’s Half Time (1924); Jan??ek’s Sinfonietta (1926); and the Prague premi?re of Jan??ek’s Taras Bulba
(1924). Rafael Kubel?k was also a champion of Martin?’s music and Czech Philharmonic/Biography: 2 premi?red Field Mass (1946) and Symphony No. 5 (1947), while Karel An?erl conducted the premi?re of Martin?’s Symphony No. 6 and Fantaisies symphoniques (1956).

Prague has long been favoured by composers, not least Mozart who, following performances of Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni, travelled the 250km journey from Vienna to conduct the first performance of La Clemenza di Tito in 1791. Beethoven also made two trips to Prague in 1796, returning two years later to perform the premi?re of his Piano Concerto No. 1. He also travelled to the spa town of Teplitz (now Templice), where he composed his Seventh Symphony. Mahler’s ties were even deeper. He was born in the Bohemian village of Kali?t?, now part of the Czech Republic, and returned aged 23 to conduct the Royal Municipal Theatre in Moravia. He later conducted the Neues Deutsches Theatre in Prague before giving the world premi?re of his Symphony No. 7 with the Czech Philharmonic.

Mahler, however, was not the first non-Czech composer to conduct the Czech Philharmonic. Edward Grieg conducted the Orchestra in 1906; Stravinsky
performed his Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra under V?clav Talich in 1930; Leonard Bernstein conducted the European premi?re of Aaron Copland’s Symphony No. 3 at the Prague Spring in 1947; Arthur Honegger conducted a concert of his own music in 1949; Darius Milhaud gave the premi?re of his Music for Prague at the Prague Spring Festival in 1966; and, in 1996, Krzysztof Penderecki conducted the premi?re of his Concerto for Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra.