Board of Directors

Vít Zouhar (*1966) is a composer, musicologist, professor of music, and vice-president at Palacky University Olomouc. He is the author and co-author of six operas (including L´Arianna, La Dafne, Coronide, Torso and Echo) and more than sixty orchestral (including Puerta del Sol, Close Encounters of those Wild at Heart) and chamber works, sound installations and music games (including Arcadi, GArdenME, Tastes, Plain, EUOUA).  His music is generally placed in the context of minimalism and postmodernism. Many of his compositions have been commissioned by prestigious institutions and ensembles such as the National Theater Prague, Prague Spring, Terezín Music Foundation, Berg Orchestra and Ensemble Damian, and are regularly performed and recorded in Europe. Zouhar´s theater works have been in the repertoire of National Theatre Prague (Radúz and Mahulena,  Monsigneur de Pourcegnac), National Theatre Brno (La Dafne, Noci Dnem, Opening of the Springs by Alfréd Radok), Ensemble Damian (Coronide, Torso, Saeculum Coronatum, L´Arianna) and opera povera (Echo). As composer in residence Zouhar served at the IEM Graz and at the Werkstadt Graz and won various prestigious awards. In 2001 he co-founded the Slyšet jinak (Different Hearing) program, focused on new ways to encourage music education and group composing. He has published five books on music (including Composing in the Classroom - with Ivo Medek and Jaromír Synek; Dear Friend. Bohuslav Martinů’s Letters to Zdeněk Zouhar; Dear friend Bureš: Bohuslav Martinů´s letters to Miloslav Bureš - with Gabriela Coufalová; Postmodern Music? German Debate at the End of the 20th Century). Zouhar reconstructed the original version of Poeme electronique by Edgard Varese for IEM-CUBE Graz and has contributed to The Bohuslav Martinů Complete Edition (Bureš Cantatas).

Photo: Anne LeBaron

Jiří Gemrot (born 15 April 1957 in Prague) is a Czech composer, radio executive, and a record producer. Since 1990 he has been director in chief of Czech Radio in Prague. As a composer, his music has been performed by all of the Czech Republic's major orchestras.

Gemrot studied at the Prague Conservatory from 1972–1976 where he was a pupil of Ema Doležalová and Jan Zdeněk Bartoš. He then entered the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague where he studied under Jiří Pauer through 1981. From 1982–1986 he was a music director for Czech Radio and since 1986 he has been a record producer for Panton Records. He has also worked as a music director for Czechoslovak Television.

Doc. MgA. Ivo Kahánek, Ph.D. is considered one of the best Czech pianists of the present day. The undisputed winner of the Prague Spring International Music Competition in 2004 regularly works with pre-eminent Czech and international orchestras and musicians. In 2007 he performed for the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in London, where he joined the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jiří Bělohlávek for a rendition of Piano Concerto No. 4 (Incantations) by Bohuslav Martinů. Ivo Kahánek repeated the concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle in 2014. His album (Janáček – Martinů – Kabeláč) received the best possible rating in specialised international music magazines – Classics Today (USA), Le Monde de la Musique (France), and Fanfare (USA). Ivo Kahánek is a graduate of the Janáček Conservatoire in Ostrava in the class of Mgr. Marta Toaderová and of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague in the class of prof. Ivan Klánský.

Born in Prague in 1960, Michal Kaňka took up the cello under leadership of Mirko Škampa at the age of seven. Later, he studied in the Prague Conservatory under prof. Viktor Moučka (cellist of the famous Vlach string quartet). During his studies at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts – under the tutelage of Prof. Josef Chuchro – he participated in the G. Piatigorsky Seminars in Los Angeles under famous cellists Andre Navarra, Maurice Gendron and Paul Tortelier in 1983 and 1984.

In 1980, Michal Kaňka received honorable mention at the international Prague Spring Competition. One year later, he was awarded the grand prize for all categories in the Czechoslovak National Competition. This initial success has been followed by top prizes in the Tchaikovsky Cello Competition in Moscow in 1982 and in the Prague Spring Competition in 1983 (first prize). In 1986, Michal won the ARD International Competition in Munich.

Michal Kaňka has performed with leading European orchestras such as the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the Prague Radio Orchestra, the Slovak Philharmonic, the Bayerischer Rundfunk Orchestra, the Berlin Rundfunk Orchestra, Liverpool Philharmonic, the Nagoya Phil., Kanagawa phil., Sapporo phil., the Century Symphony orchestra Osaka, the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, the Prague Chamber Orchestra, the Prague Chamber Philharmonic…. He has appeared as a soloist in Germany, Austria, Denmark, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Italy, France, Kosovo, Spain, Portugal, North and South America and Japan. He had been a regular soloist of the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra between years 1995–2005 and now he has been a nominated soloist of The Prague Radio Orchestra since 2003.

Michal Kaňka has recorded for Czech Radio, Radio France, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Hessischer Rundfunk, Suedwest Rundfunk, AVRO Radio Holland…. His CDs were released for Supraphon, Bonton, Panton, Radioservis Prague, Nuova Era (Italy). For a long time he had collaborated with the French company Praga digitals (distributed by Harmonia Mundi France), where he published around 40 CDs. For many of them, he received several awards - (Choc de la Music, diapason D´OR). His last CD came out by Japanese company the Nami Records.

Michal Kaňka has been always an active chamber music player. As a member of the Pražák string quartet (since 1986) and the Beethoven string trio he has appeared on major concert stages in the whole world and recorded many pieces above all for the CD company Praga digitals.

In 2011 he started to teach cello-solo at The Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and in 2013 he became a Professor at the Prague Conservatory. In 2014 he was chosen to be a chairman of the permanent committee of the international competition Prague spring.

Michal Novenko studied composition, the organ, music theory and conducting at the Prague Conservatory and at the Academy of Performing Arts, where he graduated as conductor with the 6th Symphony by Bohuslav Martinů.

He is the author of chamber, orchestra and organ compositions. As an organist he gives concerts in most European countries and in Israel and the United States (e.g. Festivals in Sion, Arezzo, Onndle, Philadelphia etc.). He is a professor at the Prague Conservatoire and often is invited abroad to work as a lecturer and a jury member of organ competitions. Recordings of historical organs are mainly represented in his extensive discography. He actively and intensively presents Czech organ compositions.