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Czech television presents
Echo of the Prague Spring 2013
Part VII.
Hello! Festival guests, performers and members of the Czech TV crew
must wake up very early from time to time.
As for instance on Saturday, May 25,
when the second Morning concert at the Prague Spring took place.
We are now at its second rehearsal.
Petra and Lívia, you seem to understand each other perfectly on the stage,
how is it in private, are you friends?
Definitely, we are schoolmates from the same professor, madame Šulcová,
so as a soprano and mezzo-soprano we are helping out each other all the time.
Didn't you want me to say it?
You can say it, if you want!
You see, we are so interconnected that we cannot put one information together.
And what about the time and place that the festival provided you with,
did you also share it in a friendly manner?
Yes, indeed, I got this performance at the Prague Spring as a prize
at the international competition of Antonín Dvořák.
And I invited Livia as a guest to perform the beautiful scene
from Act I and Act III of Dvořák's Rusalka.
Yes, we are shining, but we would like to sing it right,
that would be nice.
To be in form and sing it right.
- And we hope people will like it! - Yes, of course.
In 2011, the prestigious British magazine Gramophone labelled him as the artist of the year.
Thanks to the Prague Spring,
we can meet in person the exceptionally talented guitar player Miloš Karadaglić.
Why have you chosen exactly the guitar from all the possible musical instruments?
Because I think the guitar is the most cool one.
It is the most popular instrument in the world.
It exists in many shapes and sizes.
It is played in rock music, pop music, classical music, jazz music and others.
And that is not a coincidence.
The most natural human instrument is the human voice.
And the next natural step is to accompany your singing on the guitar.
So that is why I started to play, I wanted to accompany myself
and I wanted to be popular.
But then I chose the classical guitar because it is not played by many people.
And I feel very well in the domain of classical music.
I think the guitar is a very personal instrument,
already because of the way we hold it.
We hold it as a part of our body.
We have to create every tone and sound with the help of our hands and nails.
It is very personal and intimate, and it resembles the way we use voice.
It is different every day,
and that is why it is so attractive for the audience, and for me as well.
I learn and experience something new every day.
Pavel Trojan is a composer, a conductor, a pianist, a great manager and a connoisseur of musical life.
We encounter him at all events during the festival, including press conferences which he introduces.
What kind of work do you do here at the Prague Spring?
I would just correct you, I used to play the piano, but I am not a pianist.
My work comprises many things.
Since the Prague Spring is a festival which includes around 50 concerts
with around 40 thousand sold tickets,
we have been preparing it in a team of around 9 people.
We have a lot of work during the whole year.
It is not only that one month.
Right after the festival ends, we are going to prepare the 2015 and 2016 editions.
The 2014 edition is basically ready right now.
I am very happy I can collaborate on the programming of the festival,
so I can make good use of the fact that I am a qualified composer and conductor.
So I help with the programming and then, when the festival approaches,
we put together the promotion of the festival in the media and all the advertisements.
That means posters, press releases, all the material for the concerts.
And I am very happy that we have been collaborating
with the Naibrt design studio for several years now,
who have very talented and playful graphic designers.
And I am very happy that the Prague Spring has got this playful and creative campaign.
When you meet all the wonderful performers during your everyday work at the Prague Spring
can you imagine or do you dream about taking their role one day as a conductor on stage?
I dream about it, of course, as a conductor.
But I do have respect to all those performers and I know that my time has not come yet.
Although I hope it will not take too long.
And of course, I learn all the concerts that are performed at the Prague Spring
in case that somebody could not perform all of a sudden...no, I am joking!
But of course, for any Czech and world artist it is always a great honour to perform here.
So hopefully, the time will come one day.
Although our artists like to travel to Japan and they perform there quite often,
to host a Japanese ensemble in Prague is on the other hand quite rare.
It was therefore very precious to see the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony perform here.
Maestro, you are going to play also one Japanese piece,
which work have chosen for the Czech audience?
We chose the Overtude in D Major by Kosaku Yamada who studied in Berlin.
This piece from 1912 is the first opus by a Japanese author
composed for a traditional European orchestra ensemble.
Sayaka Shoji is literally a globetrotter.
She was raised in Italy, she studied in Israel and Germany.
Can you recall your first encounter with the Dvořák Violin concerto?
Yes, I heard it for the first time recorded by a wonderful violinist Josef Suk.
It has been until today one of my favourite recordings which I love very much.
Dvořák's music has enchanted me with its unique tunes
which come out of the songs and dances of your country.
It means a lot for me and I am very happy I can perform it here in Prague.
We have heard music performed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra
we are going to bid you farewell,
but don't forget that the next echo will be ready on Thursday again.
See you soon!