Czech Philharmonic • Semyon Bychkov

Despite her youth, the soprano Miriam Kutrowatz is beginning to make headway on leading operatic and concert stages. She is a member of the opera studio at the Vienna State Opera, and in the 2023/24 season she made her debut at the Zurich Opera House. She has appeared with such ensembles as the Orchestra of the Elbephilharmonie and the Cologne Philharmonic Orchestra, and she was a soloist in Bach’s Mass in B Minor with the Orchestra of the Vienna Academy. Her repertoire is not limited to a particular era: she sings Monteverdi, Handel, Mozart, Mahler, and Strauss.

The artistic qualities of this student in the master’s degree programme at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna under Florian Boesch are also documented by a number of prizes from the P. A. Cesti Competition (baroque opera repertoire) and participation in the semifinals at the Glyndebourne Opera Cup in 2020. A year later she also made her debut at the Salzburg Festival. Besides taking part in masterclasses in her field (under Marijana Mijanović, Malcolm Martineau et al.), she has also taken lessons in contemporary dance. 

After having graduated from music school in Glasgow (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland), Berlin, and Weimar, the career of the Scottish mezzo-soprano Catriona Morison has been on the ascent step by step. She was a member of the opera studio in Weimar, then she won an engagement at the opera in Wuppertal, but the breakthrough of her career came in 2017 (at age 31), when she was the winner at the famed competition BBC Cardiff Singer of the World. Since then, we have been seeing her routinely on concert stages with famed orchestras such as the Cologne Philharmonic, the Orchestra of the Leipzig Gewandhaus, and the Elbephilharmonie and at the festivals in Edinburgh and Salzburg. She has also appeared at the BBC Proms. She has not forgotten about Wuppertal, however, where she recently sang the role of Nerone (The Coronation of Poppaea). 

Her repertoire knows no limits, encompassing works from four centuries including contemporary music. For example, she gave the world premieres of This Frame is Part of the Painting by Errollyn Wallen and of the Prague Symphony by Detlev Glanert, with which she made her Czech Philharmonic debut two years ago. Last season, she stood in at the last moment for the ailing Christa Mayer in Mahler’s Third Symphony.

Patrick Grahl was born in Leipzig and was initially a member of the St. Thomas Choir of Leipzig under Georg Christoph Biller; he then went on to complete his singing training at the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Academy of Music in Leipzig with Professor Berthold Schmid, graduating with distinction in the master-class examination. Patrick Grahl attended master-classes held by Peter Schreier, Gotthold Schwarz, Gerd Türk, Ileana Cotrubaş and Prof. Karl-Peter Kammerlander which gave him decisive momentum for his artistic development. While still a student Patrick Grahl was able to work on and perform roles such as Alfred (in Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauß), Tamino (in Mozart’s Die Zauber Flöte) and Albert (in Albert Herring by Britten). He was also to be heard as the Young Servant in Elektra by Richard Strauss, and as Shepherd / Voice of a Young Sailor in Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at the Opéra National de Lyon. During the current season Patrick Grahl gives guest appearances as Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Teatro La Fenice di Venezia.

In 2016 the tenor won 1^st prize at the XX International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig. He is already much in demand as an oratorio and concert singer and has been invited to perform as soloist with orchestras such as the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, the Dresden Philharmonic, the NDR Radio Philharmonic, the Gürzenichorchester Cologne as well as the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and the London Symphony Orchestra; he has worked with conductors such as Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Daniele Gatti, Hartmut Haenchen, Ludwig Güttler, Peter Schreier, Andrew Manze and Leopold Hager. Patrick Grahl still has close ties with the St. Thomas Choir of Leipzig and with the Dresdner Kreuzchor.

Patrick Grahl’s concerts in the 2018/2019 season include Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang in the Maulbronn monastery, Bach’s Mass in B minor with the Münchener Bachchor in Moscow, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in Leipzig with the Gewandhaus Orchestra and the St. Thomas Choir, Mozart’s Requiem with Bachakademie Stuttgart conducted by Hans-Christoph Rademann, Mozart’s Mass in C minor in Turin under the direction of Omer Meier Wellber, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in Dresden with Dresdner Kreuzchor, Leopold Mozart’s Missa solemnis at the Mozart Festival in Augsburg with the conductor Alessandro de Marchi and Haydn’s Creation in Bonn under the baton of Paul Krämer. The highlights of the season are Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the Basel Chamber Orchestra conducted by Christopher Moulds, a tour with the Collegium Vocale Gent, and Mozart’s Requiem with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Manfred Honeck

Besides his many commitments on the concert and opera stage Patrick Grahl also has a dedicated interest in chamber music projects and recitals, for instance with his male voice quartet Thios Omilos or the ensemble Barockwerk Ost, with which in 2014 he won 1^st prize of the Advancement prize for Early Music awarded by Saarland Radio and the Academy of Ancient Music in the Saarland. Until 2013 Patrick Grahl was also awarded a scholarship by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Bonn.

Having grown from a choirboy in the Tölzer Knabenchor into a star bass-baritone who travels to the top concert halls around the world, Christian Immler is known to us mainly as an interpreter of baroque and early classical works, but his repertoire is gradually expanding to include the recital and orchestra tradition of the 19th century and onwards to the works of contemporary composers. He is not neglecting opera productions either.

Besides his vocal studies at London’s Guildhall School of Music (Rudolf Piernay), he also studied musicology. His international career began with victory at the Nadia and Lili Boulanger Competition in Paris, which opened him the door to the world’s top orchestras (BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam) and famed concert halls. He mainly visits those halls with his piano partner of many years, Helmut Deutsch (their joint CD won the prestigious Diapason découverte).

In 2022 he thrilled the Prague public as Pilate in the St John Passion, and soon afterwards he made his successful debut with the Czech Philharmonic in the Prague Symphony by Detlev Glanert. 

The vocal ensemble Collegium Vocale 1704 is among the worldwide elite in its field, and it appears together with the baroque orchestra Collegium 1704 on the world’s most important stages including Vienna’s Konzerthaus, the Philharmonie in Berlin, and Paris’s Maison de la Radio. It also participates regularly at the famed festivals in Salzburg and Warsaw. With its founder and conductor Václav Luks, the two ensembles present a concert season at the Rudolfinum in Prague, and Collegium Vocale 1704 also presents chamber music concerts separately at the culture palace Vzlet, where they have had their facilities since 2021.

Both ensembles collaborate regularly with the Bachfest Leipzig and the Opéra Royal in Versailles, which was a coproducer (along with the National Theatre in Brno and the Théâtre de Caen) of Handel’s opera Alcina performed in early 2022. Among their most important recent CDs have been the first Czech recording of Handel’s Messiah, Rameau’s Boreádes, which received the Trophées 2020 award and the 2021 Edison Award as the best opera recording of the year, and Zelenka’s Missa 1724 (2020).

Václav Luks studied at the Pilsen Conservatoire and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, and he further engaged in the specialised study of early music at the Schole Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland. After returning from abroad in 2005, he transformed the chamber ensemble Collegium 1704, which he had founded during his studies, into a baroque orchestra, and he established the vocal ensemble Collegium Vocale 1704. In addition to his intensive work with Collegium 1704, Václav Luks also collaborates with other renowned ensembles such as the Netherlands Bach Society, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, and the Handel & Haydn Society in Boston. He has worked with internationally renowned singers such as Karina Gauvin, Vivica Genaux, Philippe Jaroussky, Bejun Mehta, Sarah Mingardo, and Andreas Schöll. Under his direction, Collegium 1704 recorded the music for Peter Václavʼs epic film Il Boemo about the life of Josef Mysliveček. Václav Luks also served as the film director’s chief musical advisor. In June 2022, he received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French ambassador in Prague.

In addition to conducting at Prague’s Rudolfinum, Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic in the 2023/2024 season, took the all Dvořák programmes to Korea and across Japan with three concerts at Tokyo’s famed Suntory Hall. In spring, an extensive European tour took the programmes to Spain, Austria, Germany, Belgium, and France and, at the end of year, the Year of Czech Music 2024 will culminate with three concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York. 

Among the significant joint achievements of Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic is the release of a 7-CD box set devoted to Tchaikovsky’s symphonic repertoire and a series of international residencies. In 2024, Semjon Byčkov with the Czech Philharmonic concentrated on recording Czech music – a CD was released with Bedřich Smetanaʼs My Homeland and Antonín Dvořákʼs last three symphonies and ouvertures.

Bychkovʼs repertoire spans four centuries. His highly anticipated performances are a unique combination of innate musicality and rigorous Russian pedagogy. In addition to guest engagements with the world’s major orchestras and opera houses, Bychkov holds honorary titles with the BBC Symphony Orchestra – with whom he appears annually at the BBC Proms – and the Royal Academy of Music, who awarded him an Honorary Doctorate in July 2022. Bychkov was named “Conductor of the Year” by the International Opera Awards in 2015 and, by Musical America in 2022.

Bychkov began recording in 1986 and released discs with the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio, Royal Concertgebouw, Philharmonia Orchestra and London Philharmonic for Philips. Subsequently a series of benchmark recordings with WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne featured Brahms, Mahler, Rachmaninov, Shostakovich, Strauss, Verdi, Glanert and Höller. Bychkov’s 1993 recording of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin with the Orchestre de Paris continues to win awards, most recently the Gramophone Collection 2021; Wagner’s Lohengrin was BBC Music Magazine’s Record of the Year (2010); and Schmidt’s Symphony No. 2 with the Vienna Philharmonic was BBC Music Magazine’s Record of the Month (2018).

Semyon Bychkov has one foot firmly in the culture of the East and the other in the West. Born in St Petersburg in 1952, he studied at the Leningrad Conservatory with the legendary Ilya Musin. Denied his prize of conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic, Bychkov emigrated to the United States in 1975 and, has lived in Europe since the mid-1980’s. In 1989, the same year he was named Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris, Bychkov returned to the former Soviet Union as the St Petersburg Philharmonic’s Principal Guest Conductor. He was appointed Chief Conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra (1997) and Chief Conductor of Dresden Semperoper (1998).