Thriller
Wanna Be Starting Something – Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough
The Way You Make Me Feel
Much Too Soon
Billie Jean
Human Nature
You Are Not Alone
Keep the Faith
Remember The Time
Little Susie

intermission

Black Or White
I Just Can‘t Stop Lovin‘ You
Another Part Of Me – Blood On The Dance Floor
She’s Out Of My Life
Dirty Diana – Beat It
Blame It On The Boogie
Man In The Mirror
Will You Be There
I Want You Back
I’ll Be There 

The “Michael Jackson Symphony” is one of the crossover projects by means of which the Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra tries to comply with the requirements of the wider listening public. It originated upon the initiative of the Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra members and Martin Kumžák, whose ensemble Moondance Orchestra will accompany the ensemble from Hradec Králové during the concert, took charge of the new arrangements. This concert will bring an unusually intensive emotional experience as a tribute to the king of pop with the soul of a child.

Dasha is a singer about whom Karel Gott has said several times that such a voice is born once in a hundred years. She graduated from the State Conservatory in Prague and studied at Berklee College of Music in the American city of Boston, is a holder of the Thalia Award for the role of Mary Magdalene, performs in a number of musicals as, for example, Iago, Duch (Ghost), Galileo, Carmen and Jesus Christ Superstar. She also dedicates herself to her solo projects and gives concerts with the accompaniment of Martin Kumžák’s group Pajky Pajk, with her symphonic project Dasha Symphony and the Moondance Orchestra. Last year she released her debut CD under the Supraphon label with a fitting name “Konečně” (“Finally”), for which she received a Gold Record. Together with Jan Smigmator she regularly presents the program “Klub Evergreen” (“Evergreen Club”) on Czech Radio Dvojka.

Naďa Wepperová is a graduate of the Prague Conservatory. She is a soloist not only of the Moondance Orchestra, with which she has been performing since its founding, but also of the Karel Vlach Orchestra. She is a sought-after studio and background vocalist. She cooperates with outstanding artists such as Lucie Bílá, Marie Rottrová, Hana Zagorová, Karel Gott and Petr Malásek. She herself says, “God loves me – I make my dreams come true by doing my work, surrounded by professionals who are great people at the same time.”

Dušan Kollár studied acting at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava in Božidara Turzunovová’s class. After graduating in 1989 he became a member of the Andrej Bagar Theatre in Nitra. From 1991 he was a singer of a dance orchestra with a foreign engagement in Scandinavia for five years. As a guest he also acted at the J. G. Tajovský Theatre in Zvolen. In 1996 he decided to connect acting with singing and started performing in musicals in Prague. The first one was the musical Hair, where he met Martin Kumžák among others. Cooperation with J. Bednárik on the musical Rusalka in Prague followed and next came the musicals Mise (Mission), Hamlet, Pied Piper, The Three Musketeers, Cleopatra, Galileo, Angélique and Antoinette. He has been a soloist of Martin Kumžák’s Moondance Orchestra since its founding and participates in its concert and television projects including Stardance. Sixteen years ago Dušan Kollár became the founding member of the male vocal quartet 4TET with Jiří Korn, Jiří Škorpík and David Uličník. Together they have released four albums and have several hundreds of concerts and performances to their credit.

Dušan Marko was born in Košice in Slovakia and is a multi-genre singer, musician and composer above all of pop music. His talent has been developing since his childhood, first at artistic schools and then thanks to experiences gained on podiums both in the Czech Republic and abroad with different interpreters and musical formations. At present he is involved in the Michael Jackson Symphony project with the Moondance Orchestra and he is the singer and frontman of the band Support Lesbiens.

Martin Kumžák graduated from the Jaroslav Ježek Conservatory, then continued his studies of composition at the State Conservatory in Prague and ended his student’s years at Berklee College of Music in the American city of Boston. For many years he was a member of Milan Svoboda’s Contraband. He arranged and directed the musicals West Side Story, Hair and Rusalka. Together with Janek Ledecký he created the musicals Hamlet and Galileo and in 2013 together with the members of the group Lucie he arranged the musical Lucie for the Karlín Musical Theatre. He composed music for the Czech-American film Manor and at the National Theatre he composed music for two plays directed by Jan Kačer, Peer Gynt and Playboy of the Western World, among others. He has been cooperating with Janek Ledecký, Daniel Hůlka, the group Olympic, Hana Křížková, Dasha and others in the long term. He prepared a big band arrangement for the tour of the group Kabát in 2013. In 2000 he conducted the project Excalibur by French composer Alan Simon at Bercy in Paris. In 2002 State Opera Prague staged his opera debut Divine Comedy with the libretto by Lubomír Holzer. He dedicates himself to the composition of contemporary classical music – in 2002 he presented his suite for violin, violoncello and piano at the Spanish Hall at Prague Castle. He cooperates with the ensembles Afflatus Quintet, Epoque Quartet, Prague Chamber Philharmonic and FOK. He arranged and conducted the concert project of LUCIE and FOK, Aneta Langerová and Mínus 123 minut. He is a sought-after arranger and keyboard player. Since 2000 he has been accompanying leading Czech singers with the group PAJKY PAJK on their tours and during gala concerts such as the Queen of Pop at the Opera, Queen of Swing etc. In 2004–2007 he participated in the music accompaniment of the Czech Superstar competition. An integral part of his activities is Martin Kumžák’s cooperation with Czech Television, for example, on all the Stardance series for which he prepared all music arrangements and also accompanied the competition live with his Moondance Orchestra. He has cooperated with personalities of world big band such as Arturo Sandoval, James Morrison, Bobby Shew and others.

The Hradec KrálovéPhilharmonic Orchestrawas founded in 1978 under the name Orchestra of the City of Hradec Králové. An important period of the artistic boom of the ensemble is connected with the name of Prof. František Vajnar, who worked as chief conductor with the orchestra from 1991 to 2001, when he was appointed honorary chief conductor of the ensemble. In 2001–2012 Ondřej Kukal and in 2012–2018 Andreas Sebastian Weiser held the post of chief conductor of the ensemble. Renowned Swiss conductor Kaspar Zehnder has been chief conductor of the Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra since the start of the 2018/2019 season. The ensemble has performed at important concert halls in Europe (Grosser Musikvereinssaal in Vienna, Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Victoria Hall in Geneva, Queen Elizabeth Hall in Antwerp, Tonhalle in Düsseldorf, Neue Flora in Hamburg, KKL in Luzern etc.) and has given concerts in Belgium, France, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Austria, Spain and Murten in Switzerland. Selected concerts are broadcast by Czech Television, Television Noe and Czech Radio. The interpretative quality achieved is confirmed by numerous CD recordings for Czech and foreign companies and for Czech Radio. The ensemble plays at important festivals (Prague Spring, Smetana’s Litomyšl, Janáček’s Hukvaldy, Český Krumlov etc.). Since 2005 the Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra has been organizing a unique festival titled Music Forum Hradec Králové in cooperation with Czech Radio Vltava, during which it has performed Czech premieres of works by Schnittke, Penderecki, Henze, Kancheli, Gubaidulina, Corigliano, Tan Dun, Pärt and others. All concerts of the Music Forum are regularly broadcast by Czech Radio Vltava. In the long term the Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra has been focusing on gaining the interest of a younger audience, the overlapping of music genres and concerts of the crossover type.

The Moondance Orchestra was put together for the needs of the “Stardance …when stars dance” competition in 2006. Conductor Martin Kumžák approached his long-time coplayers and friends from studio co-operations on different projects, from jazz formations Kontraband, Dub Be Bop, Svengali etc., from musical productions Jesus Christ Superstar, Hair, Hamlet, Rusalka, from the band Pajky Pajk, which accompanied the first years of the Superstar competition and the X Factor competition in TV NOVA. At present the band has 11 members (6 members of the rhythmical section, 5 members of the wind section), its leader Martin Kumžák plays keyboards, in the symphony projects he acts as conductor. The Moondance Orchestra cooperates with Dasha, Dušan Kollár, Michal Cerman, Naďa Wepperová and others. The band still accompanies the Stardance competition and it has taken part in many other projects in the past 13 years (TýTý, Královny/vé popu, Miss, Bailando, Reflex, ANNO, Duety and others) and has created its own projects: DASHA Symphony, Zvěrokruh and its latest one is the Michael Jackson Symphony in cooperation with the Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra.