Clarinet

After studying at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno, he worked in the Brno State Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Theatre Opera Orchestra in Bratislava and since 1992 he has been a solo clarinetist of the Prague Chamber Orchestra. He has also given solo concerts with this orchestra in Germany, Austria, Spain, Lebanon and Turkey. In 2005 he gave the European premiere of the R. L. Aldridge concerto with the Prague Chamber Orchestra. For Czech Radio he recorded O. Kukal’s Clarinettino. Since 1994 he has been a member of the international orchestra Solistes Europeéns Luxembourg. He teaches at the Prague Conservatory, the Gymnasium and Music School of the City of Prague and the HF JAMU in Brno.

(born 1968) graduated from the Brno Conservatory, Janáček Academy of Performing Arts (clarinet) and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (conducting). He continued his studies as a trainee at the Academia Chigiana in Siena and at Trinity College of Music in London. He has participated in several performance competitions from which he has won top prizes.
From 1987 to 1997 he worked as a solo bass clarinetist of the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra, and as a soloist he gave numerous recitals with leading Czech orchestras in the Czech Republic and abroad. He is also active in the field of contemporary music interpretation – he has premiered a number of compositions, recorded them on Czech Radio and on CD. From 2014 to 2018 he was an internal member of the Brno Municipal Theatre Orchestra.
As a soloist and chamber musician he has performed on the stages of leading festivals (Prague Spring, Prague Premieres, Moravian Autumn, Janáček Festival, Janáček and Luhačovice Festival, Forfest Kroměříž, Concentus Moravia) and recorded several CDs. He has been a member of the Brno Wind Quintet for more than twenty years, and since 2012 he has been the artistic director of the Janáček Ensemble, with which he has performed at numerous festivals in the Czech Republic, France and China.

Since 1993 he has been teaching at the JAMU Faculty of Music, and in 2003 he was appointed associate professor. He has taught at a number of domestic and international performance courses, and has lectured at several universities abroad as part of the Erasmus Programme teaching mobility. Many of his students have held positions in leading orchestras in the Czech Republic and abroad. From 2008 to 2012 he was the Dean of the Faculty of Music of the JAMU, from 2018 to 2022 he was the Vice-Rector of the JAMU.

His conducting activity is also intensive – as a leader of larger chamber ensembles (e.g. the JAMU Wind Harmony, Ensemble Opera Diversa, Janáček Ensemble, Academia Brass Brno) he has performed at numerous concerts in the Czech Republic and abroad. In 2012 he made his debut with the Brno Philharmonic and in 2013 he conducted the world premiere of the instrumental version of Janáček’s The Disappeared Notebook at the Janáček Festival at the University of North Texas (Concerts in Brno and Denton – USA). In the same year he recorded the CD „Klein, Spilka, Zouhar, Haas“ with Ensemble Opera Diversa. In 2014 he made his debut with the North Bohemian Philharmonic Teplice, and a year later with the Prague Chamber Philharmonic. In 2016, he performed Mozart’s The Magic Flute with the opera company Run OperRun and staged The Marriage of Figaro by the same composer at the Inspiration Theatre (HAMU Opera Studio). In 2017, he conducted the Prague Philharmonia in a full-length concert with works by W. A. Mozart, S. Rachmaninov, G. Charpentier, G. Mahler and D. Žurkova, which completed his Bachelor’s degree in conducting at the Faculty of Music and Dance of the Academy of Performing Arts.

He started to play clarinet at the Piaristické náměstí Music School in České Budějovice in the class of Zdeněk Urbánek, with whom he also worked at the Conservatory in České Budějovice. During these studies he became a laureate of many competitions – Concertino Praga (2011), Conservatory Competition Show (2012, 2015), International Clarinet Competition Czech Clarinet Art (2014, 2015), Concertino Bohemia (2015) and others. He continued his studies at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno in the class of prof. Milan Polák and doc. Vít Spilka. He is now in his third year as a student of the doctoral programme.

Already during his studies at the conservatory (2015) he successfully auditioned for the National Theatre Orchestra in Prague, where he currently holds the position of deputy leader of the clarinet group.
He was the first Czech clarinetist to successfully audition for the prestigious European Union Youth Orchestra (EU Youth Orchestra), with whom he toured abroad several times between 2016 and 2019. Between 2018 and 2021 he was also a member of the orchestral academy of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. During this time he has collaborated with many distinguished conductors – Sir Simon Rattle, Semyon Bychkov, Christoph Eschenbach, Vasily Petrenko, Franz Welser-Möst, Manfred Honeck, Gianandrea Noseda, Marc Minkowski, Plácido Domingo, Giovanni Antonini and others. He also collaborates with the ensemble L’Armonia Terrena, which focuses mainly on the interpretation of classical music.

He is a founding member of Alinde Quintet, which was formed in 2019 in Prague. Since then he has won several prizes at international competitions – Bucharest International Music Competition (1st prize), International Music Competition ODIN (1st prize), International Music Competition Krakow (3rd prize). In the spring of 2023, this wind quintet participated in the Carl Nielsen International Chamber Music Competition in Copenhagen, where it won 3rd prize in the international competition.

He is also a member of the chamber ensemble Quasi Trio, with which he is a scholarship holder of the ECMA – European Chamber Music Academy. With the trio, he regularly participates in chamber music courses of prominent international professors – Johannes Meisl, Hatto Beyerle, Patrick Jüdt, Alexander Lonquich, Avedis Kouyoumdjian, Vida Vujic and others.