5th annual festival

Hradec Kralove Music Forum

3 to 13 November 2009, Hradec Kralove Philharmonic Orchestra

The anniversary 5th year of the festival titled Hradec Kralove Music Forum 2009 testifies to all the fundamental ideas that were present at its inception. Cooperation with Czech Radio 3 - the Vltava station, which has been broadcasting all concerts live for five years (selected concerts are also distributed abroad through EBU) - allows the festival to cross the borders of the region. The balance between contemporary music and accessibility to listeners comes from presenting titles that are also successful on foreign concert stages. The programme is based on thematic relations between individual sections of concerts that also use the rediscovered concept of linking chamber and orchestral music. The concerts are accompanied by light design.

The 5th year highlights classic composers of the second half of the 20th century. The opening concert of the festival will present work by Krzysztof Penderecki, who will conduct the performance. The second concert is dedicated to Bernd Alois Zimmermann and the third, to Schubert’s Winterreise in an orchestrated interpretation by Hans Zender. Gabriela Benackova is the soloist in orchestral song cycles by Dutilleux and Lutoslawski, which are on the programme before the last concert. The final concert of the festival mapping the Euro-American music area will be dedicated to American composers John Adams and Philip Glass and to the topic of nuclear power. In addition to the domestic Hradec Kralove Philharmonic Orchestra, concerts will also be performed by the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra of Ostrava and Pardubice Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra.

The Hradec Kralove Music Forum festival will again be a display of the Philharmonic Orchestra, this year starring Krzysztof Penderecki, Lauren Flanigen, Bernhard Kontarsky and Gabriela Benackova. The anniversary fifth year of the festival testifies to all the fundamental ideas that were present at its inception. The fifth festival will be ceremonially opened by two of Penderecki’s symphonies; the first domestic performance of Adams’s Dr. Atomic Symphony and Glass’s Plutonian Ode will be true smashers. The White and Black Ballet by B. A. Zimmermann will be recorded by Dusseldorf Cybele Records, which received the Preis der Deutsche Schallplattenkritik award for their latest CD with Zimmermann’s work. The emphasis on the word as a comprehensible communication bridge to the listener is supported by the song cycles included by Dutilleux and Lutoslawski, Schubert’s Winterreise (in the orchestrated interpretation by Hans Zender) and Penderecki’s Symphony No. 8 (Songs of Transience) composed on the basis of lyrics by classic German poets.