Bach Meets Bolling

Jiří Bárta is a leading Czech cellist. He regularly collaborates with both Czech and international orchestras, including the Czech Philharmonic, Slovak Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Berliner Symphoniker, and Lviv Symphony Orchestra. He has performed under the baton of conductors such as Jiří Bělohlávek, Charles Dutoit, Libor Pešek, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Maxim Shostakovich, Gianandrea Noseda, and many others.

He is a frequent guest at major festivals and concert halls worldwide, including Barcelona, Berlin, Bratislava, Buenos Aires, Edinburgh, Istanbul, Los Angeles, Munich, Newport, New York, Paris, Prague, Salzburg, Tokyo, and London. His music partners include Jana Boušková, Konstantin Lifschitz, Vadim Repin, Hamish Milne, Chloe Hanslip, Piers Lane, the Quatuor Ébène, and many others.

He is a frequent guest at major festivals and concert halls worldwide, including Barcelona, Berlin, Bratislava, Buenos Aires, Edinburgh, Istanbul, Los Angeles, Munich, Newport, New York, Paris, Prague, Salzburg, Tokyo, and London. His chamber music partners include Jana Boušková, Konstantin Lifschitz, Vadim Repin, Hamish Milne, Chloe Hanslip, Piers Lane, the Quatuor Ébène, and many others.

His recordings for Supraphon have twice been recognised as the best in their categories by Harmonie magazine. His discography includes a critically acclaimed recording of Bach’s complete Cello Suites, as well as Shostakovich’s cello concertos with conductor Maxim Shostakovich and the Prague Symphony Orchestra. He has also recorded both of Dvořák’s cello concertos: the A Major concerto (with pianist Jan Čech) and the B Minor concerto (with the Czech Philharmonic and Jiří Bělohlávek). His album featuring Kodály’s Solo Sonata received the Editor’s Choice award from Gramophone magazine, and his recording of cello concertos by Bohuslav Martinů, J. B. Foerster, and Jan Novák (with the Prague Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Jakub Hrůša) was also selected for this prestigious distinction.

Jiří Bárta collaborated with Magdalena Kožená on her Songs album for Deutsche Grammophon, which won the Gramophone Award. He also worked with Milan Svoboda’s jazz quartet on the classical-jazz fusion album Znamení Střelce (Sign of Sagittarius, Lotos), which was nominated for the Czech Popular Music and Jazz Academy Awards. The Czech Television documentary My Attempt at a Masterpiece – Jiří Bárta vs. Bach’s Solo Cello Suites, directed by Jakub Sommer, won the Circom Prize for Best Music Documentary in an international European competition.

In 2018, Bárta returned to the studio to re-record Bach’s Cello Suites, this time on a Baroque cello, for the Animal Music label. In November 2021, he released a complete recording of Beethoven’s Sonatas for Piano and Cello with pianist Terezie Fialová, and in spring 2024 he recorded a CD dedicated to Leoš Janáček, including the world premiere of Janáček’s Violin Sonata in a cello version.

Jiří Bárta studied under Josef Chuchro and Mirko Škampa in Prague, Boris Pergamenschikow in Cologne, and Eleonore Schoenfeld in Los Angeles. He has received the Europäische Förderpreis für Musik in Dresden and the Rostropovich-Hammer Award in Los Angeles.

Since 2008, he has been the artistic director of the Kutná Hora International Chamber Music Festival. In 2014, he served as the curator of the Chamber Series at the Dvořák Prague Festival. He plays a newly built cello by German master luthier Dietmar Rexhausen.

source: Terezie Fialová

Terezie Fialová is one of the most prominent figures among the young generation of Czech pianists. She is a sought-after chamber music partner of many leading soloists. She made her orchestral debut at the age of twelve and pursued violin studies in parallel with piano at an international level until the age of twenty. (She graduated from the Brno Conservatory in both piano and violin.)

A graduate in piano performance from the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (under Ivan Klánský) and in chamber music from the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg (under Niklas Schmidt), she is a laureate of international competitions in Italy, the Netherlands, and Russia. She has participated in masterclasses led by Menahem Pressler, Ferenc Rados, Joseph Kalichstein, Valentin Erben, Markus Tomas, Emanuel Ax, and others.

She performs at international festivals both in the Czech Republic and abroad, including Prague Spring, Dvořák Prague, Moravian Autumn, Janáček May, Smetana’s Litomyšl, Lipa Musica, Český Krumlov Festival, Kutná Hora International Festival, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Sarajevo Winter, Septembre Musical Vevey, Konvergencie Bratislava, Bach Before & After Istanbul, Les Flâneries Musicales Reims, Arte Sacro Madrid, and many others.

At the 2019 Prague Spring Festival, she performed Petr Eben’s extremely demanding Piano Concerto in collaboration with the Prague Symphony Orchestra FOK and conductor Pietari Inkinen. In the same year, as a member of the Eben Trio, she gave the Czech premiere of the Piano Trio Concerto L’Isola della Città by acclaimed Danish composer Bent Sørensen. The Eben Trio, consisting of pianist Terezie Fialová, violinist Roman Patočka, and cellist Jiří Bárta, has received the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Music Society Award and won first prize at the international chamber music competition in Lausanne, Switzerland. The ensemble has performed at prestigious venues such as Auditorium du Louvre in Paris, Gasteig in Munich, Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, the chamber music series at the Kennedy Center in Washington, the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, and the Oriental Arts Center in Shanghai.

Terezie was the only Czech pianist selected to participate in the prestigious Verbier Festival Academy in Switzerland in 2013 and was invited back in 2017. Her debut at the Newport International Chamber Music Festival in the USA was praised by critics as a “stunning performance and very bright future”.

She has contributed to three CD recordings. Her album dedicated to composer Petr Eben received the distinctions “Recording of the Month” and “IRR Outstanding” from a leading British music review platform. As part of the Verbier Festival Academy, she premiered the Piano Quartet by British composer Edward Nesbit, and at the Kutná Hora Festival, she performed Martin Smolka’s piece for cello and piano Smutek utek alongside Jiří Bárta.

In 2024, she presented the Czech premiere of the chamber opera The Yellow Wallpaper by contemporary British composer Dani Howard at the Opera Nova festival at the National Theatre in Prague. This unique work is written for a singer, pianist, cellist, and dancer.

She has also collaborated on spoken word and music performances with renowned Czech actors Saša Rašilov, Josef Somr, Petr Štěpánek, and Karel Dobrý.

In 2021, she released a 2-CD album of Beethoven’s complete Sonatas for Piano and Cello with Jiří Bárta for the Animal Music label. In April 2024, they released a CD and LP dedicated to Leoš Janáček, featuring the world premiere of Janáček’s Violin Sonata arranged for cello by Jiří Bárta.

Terezie has led masterclasses at music universities in Jordan and Israel. She is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Performance and Interpretation Theory at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (HAMU).

source: Terezie Fialová

Petr Dvorský graduated from the Jaroslav Ježek Conservatory in Prague with a focus on jazz and pursued private classical double bass studies with professors Jan Kment, Václav Fuka, and Jiří Valenta. He entered the Czech jazz scene as a member of the debuting quartet The Four alongside Karel Růžička Jr., Stanislav Mácha, and Jiří Slavíček. In 1990, the ensemble won the international competition at the Karlovy Vary Jazz Festival. Two years later, he received second place with the Pavel Wlosok Trio at the Jazz Juniors international competition in Kraków, Poland.

Since then, Dvorský has collaborated with many leading Czech and international jazz musicians, including Sandy Lomax, Marek Vinci, Steve Lacy, Steve Houben, Juraj Bartoš, Gabriel Jonáš, Matúš Jakabčic, Karel Růžička, Emil Viklický, Eva Olmerová, Ingrid Jensen, Štěpán Markovič, Luboš Andršt, Markus Printup, and Najponk, among others. For several consecutive years, he was nominated as Jazz Talent of the Year by the Czech Jazz Society. From 2004 to 2013, he was a member of the Czech Radio Big Band. As part of the Emil Viklický Trio, he performed with the legendary hard-bop saxophonist Lew Tabackin.

Currently, Dvorský performs with several ensembles, including the Emil Viklický Trio and Quartet, Concept Art Orchestra, Rajnošek B.and, and Petr Beneš Quartet. His international projects include an ongoing collaboration with pianist Walter Fischbacher, regularly joining him in solo ventures and accompanying distinguished soloists such as Alita Moses, Femi Temowo, Audrey Martell, and Marianne Solivan. In 2017, he performed with the Emil Viklický Trio featuring Ernie Adams at the Metropolis Performing Arts Centre in Chicago.

Beyond performing, Dvorský has contributed to the jazz community as an editor for JAM jazz magazine (1999–2003) and as the director of the Prague Summer Jazz Workshop (2004–2005). He also teaches private double bass lessons.

source: Petr Dvorský

Jiří Stivín Jr. is a Czech jazz drummer with a strong connection to classical music.

Born in Prague into a musical family, he began playing percussion instruments at an early age. At 15, he started performing with the jazz band of saxophonist Jiří Stivín, with whom he has played hundreds of concerts in the Czech Republic and abroad.

He studied at the Prague Conservatory under Professor Miloš Veselý and, in 2021, completed a master's degree in Jazz Music at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. As a session musician, he has contributed to dozens of albums by Czech and international artists across various genres.

He is currently active in ensembles such as Emil Viklický Trio, Radek Baborák Orquestrina, Adam Tvrdý Trio, and many others.

source:  Jiří Stivín Jr.