Austrian flautist Walter Auer is a graduate of the Mozarteum in Salzburg and the Herbert von Karajan Academy in Berlin. He launched his career as principal flautist of the Dresden Philharmonic, and presently holds the same position in the Vienna Philharmonic. He has won numerous honours in international competitions as both a soloist and a chamber player, in Cremona, Bonn, and Munich among other locations. His efforts to expand traditional flute repertoire, for example through transcribing Chopin’s Piano Trio, are winning great acclaim. Many new works by contemporary composers have been dedicated to him. On concert stages he encounters such luminaries as Daniel Barenboim and Cecilia Bartoli, and he also works as a teacher, leading master classes at the famous Juilliard School, the New York Summer Music Festival, the conservatoire in Sydney, and in Japan, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland.

The French horn player and conductor Radek Baborák is one of the most successful Czech performers of his generation. He studied French horn under the legendary French horn player and teacher Bedřich Tylšar, and he already won a number of international competitions as a student. From 2003 until 2010 he held the prestigious post of principal French horn of the Berlin Philharmonic. He appears at important music festivals (Salzburg, Saint Petersburg, Utrecht) and collaborates with leading orchestras around the world (Munich Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, Moscow Philharmonic) and with top conductors (Daniel Barenboim, Seiji Ozawa, Simon Rattle, Neeme Järvi, James Levine, Vladimir Askhenazy). He is the founder and artistic director of the Baborak Ensemble and a member of the Afflatus Quintet, and he collaborates with the Berlin Baroque Soloists. He is the founder and conductor of the Czech Sinfonietta, which consists of musicians of the younger generation. He has also taught as a lecturer at the Fondazione Arturo Toscanini in Bologna and as a guest professor at TOHO University in Tokyo, and he teaches at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.

The idea of forming the Dvořák Prague Festival Orchestra was born on the threshold of the year 2017 in the mind of this year’s curator of the chamber series, world-renowned hornist and conductor Radek Baborák, and the festival’s artistic director Marek Vrabec. After the model of major festivals abroad like those in Lucerne and Budapest a unique ensemble is arising, whose core consists of players from the Czech Sinfonietta—functioning for some time now on the Czech musical scene under its founder, Radek Baborák. The exceptionality of this project lies in the fact that once a year, during and thanks to the Dvořák Prague Festival, he will expand the ensemble to include the most important Czech instrumentalists playing in some of the most prestigious orchestras of the world, such as the philharmonic orchestras of Berlin and Vienna, the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, and the radio orchestras of Bavaria and Berlin, who will further be joined by soloists from abroad whom we know for example from their collaboration with the Czech Philharmonic, and who will serve as section leaders. The artistic guarantor of the Festival Orchestra is Radek Baborák, who thanks to his long-term ties to luminaries like Daniel Barenboim and Seiji Ozawa is preparing a major festival innovation with the fellow players he has invited.

A native of Berlin, oboist Clara Dent graduated from the Mozarteum in Salzburg and earned her master’s diploma at the Academy of Music in Munich. She has won honours in many international performance competitions including the ARD Competition in Munich. She collaborates as a soloist with many important European orchestras, such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony, the Bach Collegium of Munich, the Camerata Academica of Salzburg, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the Berlin Radio Symphony, and the Polish Chamber Philharmonic, and appears regularly in international music festivals in many countries of Europe, including the Berliner Festwochen, the Bach-Festwochen in Thun, and the Chamber Music Festival in Maribor. Since 1999 she has been principal oboist in the Berlin Radio Symphony. She shared in a recording of concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach on the Tacet label.

Bence Bogányi studied bassoon in his native Hungary before continuing his education at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and the College of Music in Berlin. He holds numerous awards including First Prize in the Bernhard Crusell International Music Competition in Finland. In 2005 he gave the world premiere of the Bassoon Concerto dedicated to him by the important Finnish composer Kalevi Aho. During the course of his career he has been principal bassoonist in the State Opera in Helsinki, the Helsinki Philharmonic, and the Berlin Radio Symphony, and since 2007 he has held that position with the Munich Philharmonic. He has already appeared as a soloist and chamber player in many countries of Europe and in Japan. With the Chantilly Quintet he has participated in concerts, workshops, and master classes in such diverse locations as Greece, Czechia, and Africa. Since 2009 he has been teaching bassoon at the College of Music in Nürnberg.