Dear friends of music,

the 27th year of the IMF Český Krumlov remains loyal to the multi-genre concept and also to using unique concert venues which Český Krumlov is able to offer. In terms of music, the festival includes a large variety and even this year viewers will experience a spectrum of music of different genres from the 15th till the 21st century – opera, classical music, a musical, folklore and crossover.

We have tried to vary the opening of the festival in the past few years. After the success of last year’s closing baroque evening in the castle garden we decided to go back to this wonderful place and by means of an artistically conceived fairy-tale play to prepare a sort of degustation of what the viewers will see and hear between 20th July and 11th August at this year of the festival. Selected artists, who will make another appearance at the festival with their own concert, will perform during the opening evening. Swing will appear at the festival for the first time. The swing evening in Las Vegas style titled “Keep Swinging!” has been prepared by Jan Smigmator. Together with the Felix Slováček RTV Big Band and the dance group Pop Balet they will present primarily songs by George Gershwin, whose 120th anniversary of his birth the whole world will remember in 2018, and other famous melodies by Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Duke Ellington and Cole Porter. Multi-genre singer Dasha and “German Sinatra” Tom Gaebel will be guests of the concert. A stylish afterparty with The Nob(b)les Casino and a dancefloor with swing dance instruction, a degustation bar and an evening reception will also be prepared for the visitors. The IMF Český Krumlov started cooperating with Jaroslav Ježek Elementary Art School, which provides music education for visually impaired children and youth. Our mission is not only to bring music to glossy stages. We want everybody who is interested to be able to experience music. Therefore we help those who love music and whose access to music is more difficult. During the opening evening one of the performances will belong to a selected talented student of the school.

The second festival evening will once again welcome two world-famous opera singers who have performed at the Metropolitan Opera and on many other prestigious stages, Polish tenor Piotr Beczała and Canadian-American soprano with Czech roots Sondra Radvanovsky. Just as last year the artists will be accompanied by the PKF – Prague Philharmonia with conductor Leoš Svárovský. The first half of the concert will be dedicated to Puccini’s and Verdi’s works, in the second half the audience will hear, for example, French opera as well as arias from Dvořák’s Rusalka and the entire evening will culminate with Franz Lehár. Those who like big orchestral concerts should not miss the program at the Castle Riding Hall. Outstanding Spanish pianist Javier Perianes, German violinist Tanja Becker–Bender and Russian cellist Boris Andrianov will make an appearance there. The chamber series of concerts at the Masquerade Hall with great acoustics and fine interpreters is popular. Besides Jiří Bárta’s recital, which will be one of the highlights of the festival, the young incoming generation will perform there. I could mention, for example, the young ensemble Francisextet specializing in music of the 20th century, which is the absolute winner of the radio competition Concerto Bohemia. Two of the most talented violinists of the incoming generation, Miroslav Ambroš and Jaroslaw Nadrzycki, will play with the accompaniment of the South Czech Philharmonic under the baton of Jan Kučera. Iranian violinist Amin Ghafari will perform with the Suk Chamber Orchestra under the leadership of young conductor Nikol Kraft. Chamber programs will also be presented by renowned guitarist Pavel Steidl and the ensemble Concilium Musicum Wien. Organist Jaroslav Tůma will return to the festival and to the Church of Corpus Christi and the Grieving Virgin Mary on the premises of the former Minorite monastery. This is also the place where the ensemble Schola Gregoriana Pragensis will make an appearance with a varied musical mosaic from the repertoire closely connected with the personality of Charles IV.

The festival will remember important anniversaries of composers, interpreters and other personalities. We decided to dedicate two concerts to the legacy of Leoš Janáček. A chamber evening during which both of the composer’s string quartets will be played by the Wihan Quartet. A symphony concerto during which the Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra will perform the most significant symphonic works by Leoš Janáček, Taras Bulba and the Sinfonietta. A concert will be dedicated to the memory of an important Czech personality, violinist, teacher, scholar and patron, Prof. Emil Friedmann Kossuth, and will be directed by conductor Manuel Hernández-Silva, who studied under Kossuth. This year crossover will be represented by a very successful project, a music-dance performance titled “Carmen Fantasy by Gipsy Devils”, in which the outstanding Slovak group Gypsy Devils and the dance group Magic Spurs will perform. Their performance is enriched by elements of jazz, ethno and flamenco and unique virtuosity which constitutes an integral part of the artistic expression of the Slovak ensemble. Another person celebrating an anniversary this year, Jiří Pavlica, together with the folklore ensemble Hradišťan, will present a selection from their works. The program of this year’s musical evening accentuates the 100th anniversary of outstanding American composer and author of the famous West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein. The soloists from Broadway – Christiane Noll, Dee Roscioli, Hugh Panaro and Darius de Haas – accompanied by the North Czech Philharmonic Teplice under the leadership of American conductor Randall Craig Fleischer will present a selection from Bernstein’s famous works. In the second half of the concert the audience will hear songs from the most famous American musicals interpreted by the soloists. We shall celebrate the 100th anniversary of the foundation of Czechoslovakia at the end of the festival in a relaxed mood. We will remember that our republic consisted of two states. The evening will be inaugurated in the square by Military Music Olomouc and then, accompanied by their music, we will walk through the streets of Český Krumlov to the Brewery

Garden, where the Slovak dance group Lúčnica and the band Čechomor with guest singer Martina Partlová and Vlado Kumpan’s Brass Music will meet on the stage. A gastronomical experience consisting of the specialities of both our nations will be prepared. I trust that this year’s program offer will attract your attention and that we will meet at one of the festival concerts.

Jaromír Boháč, president of IMF Český Krumlov