Milena Kolářová

Aged six, she started playing the violin in the Charlotte Masaryk Music School in Prague with Pavel Prantl. She successfully finished her studies at the Prague Conservatory with Pavel Kudelásek in 2018 and having recently passed the entrance exams, will be enrolled at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague in October 2020. Besides private lessons with Ray Chen, she also attended a masterclass with Anne-Sophie Mutter. In 2012, she won the 1^st prize at the Concertino Praga competition and took the same award at the Jozef Muzika International Violin Competition in 2014, also being named the overall winner.

Before joining the Czech Philharmonic, she had played with the Karlovy Vary Symphony Orchestra. In 2015–2016, she was a member of the Orchestral Academy of the Czech Philharmonic and has been collaborating with the Czech Student Philharmonic since 2013.

As a soloist, she has performed with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, appeared at the New York Summer Music Festival, where she studied the violin in 2011, and the Lake George Music Festival (USA), where she has been participating regularly. She is also interested in chamber music, be it within the above-mentioned festivals or as the principal second violinist of the Haydn Ensemble.

She grew up with folk music in the Children Folklore Music Ensemble Notičky, to which she is still drawn through family and emotional ties. In her last years with the ensemble, she performed as the first violinist. She has a bit of an adventurous soul and when she does not have her violin tucked under her chin, she likes to travel or read and is a passionate yogi.