Ladies and gentlemen,
Allow me to welcome you on the occasion of the opening of the 78th concert season of the Slovak Philharmonic, a season which, once again, will offer you firstrate music, mesmerizing guests and new original projects. In the second half of October, when the season starts oficially, the Slovak Philharmonic’s ensembles will already have been through several festival and other special events. However, it is the subscription cycles that the core of our artistic activity during the year consists in. This is the reason we, while preparing and planning them, take special care to curate their programming balance and diversity, to guarantee you can enjoy the concerts in top performing quality.
In the main cycles A/B, D/E, C and M you can look forward to both proven and rare symphonic and vocal-instrumental works ranging from the period of Classicism to the music of the present day. However, the programmes of the new season of the SP will offer more than great scores and rich sound of our ensembles. There’s something for everyone: for the lovers of more intimate, softer timbres, and the fans of historically informed performance of Baroque music who can choose from the extensive offer in the cycles of Early Music, Piano Cycle, Organ Concerts and Chamber Music. Camerata Philharmonica Slovaca, a group of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra’s players, will present itself again. Its purpose is to support their joint music-making and presentation of works from both the Slovak and world chamber repertory. Educative projects are prepared for the listeners of all generations, from the youngest pre-schoolers through pupils and students of secondary schools to seniors. These concerts, accompanied with live commentary, will appear in the Junior, Music Academy and Family Concerts cycles. The birth anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the death anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven will be commemorated; during the pre-Christmas time Jakub Jan Ryba’s popular Czech Christmas Mass will sound in the Slovak Chamber Orchestra cycle, featuring the Lúčnica Chorus as a guest. The Christmas concerts with the Bratislava Boys’ Choir cannot be missing. A special musical gift will be a new cantata Advent Journey by the Czech composer Jiří Gemrot, which will sound in December in a world premiere performed by the Slovak Philharmonic and Prague Philharmonic Choir in Žofín, Prague, and then with the same performers here in Bratislava.
New Year’s Eve and New-Year concerts will again be filled with high spirits as well as famous opera titles, accompanying the remarkable international artistic career of our renowned baritone singer Dalibor Jenis, the soloist of these nights, who celebrates an important birthday this year. Another guest who has passed a milestone birthday this year and who can rarely be heard on our stages is the tenor Štefan Margita. The Slovak native living in Prague will perform with an acclaimed Czech soprano Kateřina Kněžíková. Mentioning birthday celebrants I cannot omit this year’s fresh septuagenarian Vladimír Godár, one of the most frequently performed Slovak composers in the Slovak Philharmonic programmes. Besides his music we will also have an opportunity to listen to music of other important Slovak composers: Alexander Albrecht, Štefan Németh-Šamorínsky, Alexander Moyzes, Ján Cikker, Dezider Kardoš, Ladislav Burlas, Ilja Zeljenka, Ladislav Kupkovič, Igor Bázlik, Iris Szeghy, Jana Kmiťová and others. The world premiere of a new oratorio St. Adalbert by Ľubica Čekovská will indeed be a remarkable event. The work, on which the Prague Symphony Orchestra and Slovak Philharmonic Choir collaborate, led by Tomáš Netopil, will be performed in June 2027 in the Municipal House in Prague, as well as at the festival Smetana’s Litomyšl 2027.
In the current season the permanent guest conductors Ondrej Olos and Daniel Raiskin are entrusted with the artistic leadership of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra. The Slovak Philharmonic Choir is led by the choirmaster Petra Torkošová. Other masters of the baton whose top-ranking art can be admired in performances of the supreme compositions from the world music literature in the coming season include: Juraj Valčuha, Wayne Marshall, Eivind Gullberg Jensen, Erik Nielsen, Sascha Goetzel, Dawid Runtz, Lukáš Vasílek, Rastislav Štúr and many others. We will also welcome excellent Slovak and foreign instrumental and vocal soloists in the subscription concerts.
Our ensembles will likewise collaborate on several concert events and performances abroad. The Slovak Philharmonic Choir is again invited to the Vienna State Opera, where it will participate in the December performance of Hector Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust, led by the conductor Bertrand de Billy. The Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as the Slovak Chamber Orchestra, will appear at several festivals in the Czech Republic.
Jazz in Reduta concerts are a novelty in our programmes. For the first time excellent musicians from other than classical genre will perform in the Column Hall of the Slovak Philharmonic, among them the legend of the Slovak jazz scene Peter Lipa with his band, and Czech singer Dasha with the band Epoque Quartet, offering a programme featuring songs from the repertory of Ella Fitzgerald. I believe that in the pleasant “club” atmosphere the jazz lovers will be satisfied and the new cycle will become a permanent component of subscription concerts of the SP in the future.
Special events include a performance of Wiener Symphoniker orchestra in March. They will come to Bratislava just for this one night. Their programme consisting of well-known works by Josef Strauss and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with the soloists, coloratura soprano Alina Wunderlin and baritone Luca Pisaroni, will be conducted by Petr Popelka.
Support of young students of music is a traditional part of Slovak Philharmonic’s activities. In this season the orchestras and soloists of Bratislava Conservatory, Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava and Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica will show their mastery onstage at our concerts. In addition, the establishment of the Orchestral and Choral Academy of the SP is our own new educative project. After passing the auditions, its young members will take active part in the rehearsals and selected concerts of the SP’s ensembles. The aim of this new project is to help train the next generations of first-rate musicians and chorus singers, who will get an opportunity to become ordinary members of professional music ensembles in the future.
Dear friends, I am sure you will be able to choose from our rich offer of programmes, according to your taste and mood, and I believe that the 78th concert season will bring you deep artistic and social experiences in the Slovak Philharmonic, as we have followed and will always follow the statement “Prima la musica e poi le parole”.
Marián Turner
Managing Director
of the Slovak Philharmonic