The Academy of Chamber Music is the patron of top young performers who devote themselves intensively to chamber music. Each year, auditions are held for the awarding of scholarships to cover the costs of their studies, including board and accommodation. The main pillars of the project are events at which the scholarship winners join with the instructors to prepare a programme presented at several subsequent concerts. The bulk of the repertoire consists of the music of the Classical and Romantic eras, and within the framework of special projects there are also performances of works from the Baroque period, the 20th century, and contemporary music. The Academy has an international reach thanks to its close cooperation with the German foundation Villa Musica Rheinland-Pfalz. For Czech students, this represents a chance to become acquainted with each other and to appear on stage together with top students and teachers from German universities. Each season, instructors of the Villa Musica foundation are joined by selected instructors from the Czech Republic.

The Academy is regularly invited to perform on prestigious stages. It has made appearances at the Saint Lawrence concert season of the Prague Spring Festival and has performed repeatedly in the chamber music series of the Czech Philharmonic. Abroad, the ensemble has been a guest at the Styriarte festival in Graz, Austria, the Mainzer Musiksommer festival, and the chamber series of the Berlin Philharmonic. The Academy has also long been involved with concert activities on regional stages in the Central Bohemian Region, so audiences can attend high quality concerts in Kutná Hora, Beroun, Vlašim, Nelahozeves, Niměřice, and Kostelec nad Černými lesy.

The list of the academy’s graduates now numbers more than 20 individual musicians as well as ensembles that have immediately established themselves on the chamber music scene: Trio Incendio, the Kukal Quartet, the Slavic Trio, the Schelingerová-Tokarska duo, and many more. 

Tomáš Jamník is a Czech cellist, currently residing in Berlin and Prague. Recognized for his in-depth knowledge of each performed piece, attention to detail, and strong interest in bringing less-well-known music to a wider audience, Tomáš has established himself as a celebrated soloist in both classical and contemporary music.

In 2006 he won the Prague Spring International Music Competition and was awarded several special prizes, in 2011 he was also a finalist at the Pierre Fourniere Award in London. Since then, Tomáš has performed extensively with top international orchestras in Europe, the U.S., and Asia, including the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Prague Philharmonia, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and Philharmonia Orchestra London. He is also respected as a chamber musician.

In the 2022–23 season, Tomáš will appear at the Prague Spring International Festival with the Prague Symphony Orchestra performing Capriccio by Jan Novák. In June 2023 he will tour with the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra performing Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto. During the season Tomáš will also give recitals and teach at the US universities (including the New York University and Juilliard School) thanks to the Fulbright-Masaryk scholarship.

Alongside his interpretational career, Tomáš is an enthusiastic educator and promoter of classical music. Since 2015, he has served as the artistic director of the Czech Chamber Music Academy, which cooperates with the German foundation Villa Musica, and in 2019 he became the artistic director of the Ševčík Academy, which focuses on advancing the teaching method of the legendary pedagogue Otakar Ševčík. In 2016, he founded the Vážný zájem (“Serious interest”) project, which helps organize classical music concerts in people’s homes.

Tomáš began his musical training in the Czech Republic under Mirko and Martin Škampa and graduated under Josef Chuchro at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts. He continued at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Leipzig under Peter Bruns and at the Universität der Künste Berlin under Jens Peter Maintz. He enriched his education at the Karajan Academy of Berliner Philharmoniker under Ludwig Quandt and at the Kronberg Academy under Steven Isserlis, Siegfried Palm, Young-Chang Cho and Pieter Wispelwey, as well as by participating in master classes given by Heinrich Schiff, Jiří Bárta, Gustav Rivinius and Truls Mørk.

Tomáš plays a violoncello made by Lorenzo Storioni in 1784, which was generously lent to him from the private collection of Mr. Aleš Voverka.

Praised by The New York Times for his ‘uncommon sensitivity and feeling’, the eloquent pianist Roman Rabinovich was the winner of the 12th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in 2008. His subsequent career has led him to perform throughout Europe and the USA in venues as Leipzig’s Gewandhaus, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory, Cité de la Musique in Paris and Washington DC’s Kennedy Center. He has appeared with orchestras including Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Sarasota Orchestra, Meininger Hofkapelle, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, KBS Symphony, Prague Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic and all the major Israeli orchestras and collaborated with conductors such as and Sir Roger Norrington, Zubin Mehta, Ludovic Morlot, Kristjan Järvi, Gerard Schwarz and Joseph Swensen.

At the opening of the 2022–23 season, Roman Rabinovich made his Carnegie Hall Concerto Debut, stepping in at 24-hours’ notice with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in Mozart’s Concerto K. 271. Other highlights of the season include the Tchaikovsky Concerto no. 1 with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Ludovic Morlot, the Greig Concerto with Edmonton Symphony and Michael Stern, Bach’s d minor Concerto with the NFM Leopoldinum and Joseph Swensen, the Schubert/Liszt ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy with Israel Symphony and Christoph Koenig, Rachmaninov Concerto no. 2 with Punta Gorda Symphony and Mozart’s Concerto K. 488 with Helena Symphony. This season’s recital engagements include Portland Piano International, the Steinway Series at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Philip Lorenz Memorial Piano Series, Maverick Concerts and Music at MoCA Concert Series.

Dubbed ‘a true polymath, in the Renaissance sense of the word’ (Seen & Heard International, 2016), Rabinovich is also a composer and visual artist with a repertoire spanning six centuries, from Byrd to Boulez and beyond. He has won critical acclaim for interpretations of the music of Haydn. In summer 2016 he embarked upon the Haydn Project, encompassing recital series of Haydn’s complete keyboard sonatas; these have included cycles at the Lammermuir and Bath Festivals in UK and at Chamberfest Cleveland in the US; he has also appeared at the Herbstgold Festival in Eisenstadt, and curated a three-concert Haydn Day at Wigmore Hall. The first two volumes of his complete Haydn Cycle on First Hand Records have been released to critical acclaim, with BBC Music Magazine noting ‘the elegance and liveliness of Rabinovich’s keyboard style are, indeed, a joy to listen to, and his unfailing musicality and inventiveness allows him to penetrate to the expressive heart of Haydn’s world.’

Together with his wife, violinist Diana Cohen, Roman Rabinovich is co-director of ChamberFest Cleveland as well as the newly inaugurated ChamberFest West festival in Calgary, Canada. During the 2020-21 global pandemic, the pair gave a very successful series of free weekly concerts from their front yard in Calgary.

Roman Rabinovich made his Israel Philharmonic debut under Zubin Mehta aged 10, having immigrated to Israel a year before from Tashkent, Uzbekistan. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music as a student of Seymour Lipkin, he went on to earn his Masters degree at the Juilliard School where he studied with Robert McDonald. He was among the first of three young pianists to be championed by Sir András Schiff for his ‘Building Bridges’ series.