VLTAVA PHILHARMONIC HALL - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Media Contact
• Member of the Project Team
• PR and Communications Manager

Since 2023, she has been a member of the Vltava Philharmonic Hall team. She studied English philology and musicology at Palacký University Olomouc, and at The National University of Ireland within a one-year study programme. She graduated her master's degree in musicology at Charles University in Prague. She has years of experience in the field of PR and marketing in the cultural (DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, Collegium 1704, Vzlet - Prague Culture Hub, etc.) and commercial spheres. She completed courses in online marketing, social media, graphics and creative writing. Before joining the Vltava Philharmonic Hall team, she was in charge of the Forbes CZ social media.

Job Titles:

• Ambassador in Support of the Construction of a New Concert Hall in Prague for, in Her Own Words, the Following Reasons

Dagmar Pecková became an ambassador in support of the construction of a new concert hall in Prague for, in her own words, the following reasons: "I have traveled the world. I've seen lots of cities, but Prague really is unique. The architectural heritage we have been given by our ancestors is stunning, but a commitment at the same time. Not only should we take care of these monuments and hand them over to the generations that follow, we should also leave something magnificent of our own behind. We too should pass on the legacy of our time to future generations. The Vltava Philharmonic Hall undoubtedly achieves this task." Mezzo-soprano Dagmar Pecková studied at the State Conservatory in Prague and, after an engagement in Sächsische Staatsoper in Dresden, she was for several years a member of Staatsoper in Berlin. During a successful professional career, she has performed on world opera and concert stages such as Bayerische Staatsoper, Carnegie Hall New York, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Grand Thé tre de Genève, Hamburgische Staatsoper, National Theater in Prague, Opéra de Monte-Carlo, Opéra National de Paris, Opera Zürich, Royal Opera House Covent Garden London, San Francisco Opera, Sächsische Staatsoper, Staatstheater Stuttgart, Theater Basel, Thé tre du Ch telet Paris, Teatro Sao Carlo in Lisbon, Wigmore Hall in London, and elsewhere. She has repeatedly performed at prestigious international music festivals such as the Edinburgh International Festival, Salzburg Festspiele, Prague Spring, Smetana's Litomyšl and the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, where she was a resident artist in 2004. She has sung under the artistic guidance of major conductors such as J. Bělohlávek, S. Bychkov, S. Cambreling, P. M. Davies, C. Von Dohnanyi, C. Dutoit, C. Eschenbach, V. Fedoseyev, M. Honeck, N. Järvi, C. Mackerras, K. Nagano, F. Luisi, V. Neumann, L. Pešek, K. Petrenko, G. Prétre, P. Schneider, S. Young and W. Sawallisch. She has also repeatedly collaborated with prestigious orchestras such as the Bamberger Symphoniker, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Symphony, Czech Philharmonic, Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, DSO Berlin, London Symphony, Münchner Philharmoniker, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, Orcherstre de la Suisse Romande, Pittsburg Symphony, Orchestras of WDR, SWR, MDR and NDR, Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg, PKF - Prague Philharmonia, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, RSO Frankfurt, Staatskapelle Berlin, Staatskapelle Dresden, FOK Prague Symphony Orchestra, The Philharmonia, Tonhalle Zürich, Wiener Philharmoniker, Wiener Symphoniker, and others. Her recordings have been released by Hänsler Classic, Teldec, Warner Music and Supraphon, where she is releasing other albums (Wanted, Mahler's The Song of the Earth, Nativitas, The Magical Gallery and Exaltatio). She was awarded a Supraphon Golden Disk for her albums Nativitas and Wanted in 2019. She also works intensively on her own concert projects, such as the operatic recital Sinner (2015), the cabaret revue Wanted (2017), and Christmas songs Nativitas (2018) and Exaltatio (2020). She also founded the Zlatá Pecka Music Festival in her birthplace in 2017.

Job Titles:

• Director of the Prague Symphony Orchestra FOK

"This concert hall is an opportunity. It would be wonderful if Praguers could hear their own Prague Symphony Orchestra in a way that previously only visitors to top theaters abroad could experience when the orchestra was on tour. I say this as a biased participant in the embryonic Vltava Philharmonic Hall. But as Praguer, i have more basic things on my mind: the concert hall is a powerful and complex impulse for the development of quality of life in the city, its transport infrastructure, and it is a marketing gauntlet thrown down to the whole world, a profitable tourist attraction. I consider it fortunate and far-sighted that it is a concert hall that will become such a driver, and not another shopping mall, office complex or parking zone.

Job Titles:

• General Director of the Czech Philharmonic

"Music is the specific language of art and has the power to cultivate its listeners and combine them with other art lovers. The Vltava Philharmonic Hall, like Rudolfinum in its time, when it used to be known as the Temple of Art, will serve exactly this purpose: the cultivation of the spirit and bringing people together. The Czech Philharmonic has been striving for the very same goals throughout its existence."

Job Titles:

• Conductor

Jakub Hrůša is one of the most active and influential representatives of Czech musical culture and the Czech conducting school in the world. He is a regular guest at leading orchestras in both Europe and the USA. He currently works as the Chief Conductor of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, and a principal Guest Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. From 2009 to 2015, he worked as the Musical Director and Chief Conductor of the orchestra PKF - Prague Philharmonic. His most important engagements include numerous, repeated invitations to the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Leipzig Gewandhaus and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. He is also a regular guest at the BBC Proms and in the coming season, he will make his début at the Salzburg Festival. Aside from the concert repertoire, Hrůša is also very close to opera. He is a frequent guest at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival, the Vienna State Opera, London's Royal Opera, Opera national de Paris and the Frankfurt Opera, and occasionally on the Czech opera scene. He recently won the BBC Music Magazine Award for recording compositions by Dvořák and Martinů, as well as a DVD recording of Vanessa, an opera from the Glyndebourne Festival. An active interest in the personality of Josef Suk, Antonín Dvořák's son-in-law, was reflected in his work last year at the Dvořák Festival in Prague and in the most recent season of the Czech Philharmonic orchestra. Suk's complete orchestral work is now his priority recording project. The common denominator of his activities abroad is the persistent promotion of works by Czech composers. For this activity, he was awarded the Antonín Dvořák Prize by the Academy of Classical Music in 2020.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Project Team
• Project and Externality Coordination Manager

He has been a member of the Vltava Philharmonic Hall team since 2022. He graduated from the Faculty of Civil Engineering, majoring in construction and transport construction at BUT in Brno. He is an authorized engineer in the field of Bridges and engineering structures and holds the authorization of the Ministry of Transport to perform construction supervision on road constructions. He has many years of experience in the management of important transport constructions in the Czech Republic as well as abroad.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Project Team
• Deputy Project Team Leader, Project Manager

Deputy Head of the Vltava Philharmonic Hall project team and founding member of the Association for the Construction of a New Concert Hall in Prague (founded in 2010), of which he is currently Vice-Chairman. He graduated from the University of Economics in Prague and has long been dedicated to the production, organization and provision of cultural and sporting events. He is also a partner and executive in a production company. In the past, he has participated as a consultant, for example, in the construction and preparation for operation of the Prague O2 aréna, the preparation and construction of the multi-purpose hall Fórum Karlín, also in Prague, and in cooperation with the studio M1 in the preparation of the construction project of the Janáček Cultural Center in Brno.

"The ideas behind my approval are simple: An older man, heavily involved in music as well as in the production and business side of it, will be very pleased wit... "The ideas behind my approval are simple: An older man, heavily involved in music as well as in the production and business side of it, will be very pleased with the fact that he can still keep his finger on the pulse of the era and that he might modestly help out a good cause that will surely outlive him. May God help us. So let's go for it ...". "A graduate of Berklee College of Music in Boston, he received a doctorate in philosophy and psychology from Charles University in Prague. He became a renowned jazz musician and the leader of the legendary group Jazz Q, with whom he recorded dozens of albums in the Czech Republic and elsewhere in Europe. He also acts in an acoustic formation along with the American guitarist Tony Ackerman and the Iranian percussionist Imran Musa Zangi. In his time, he was the best Czech keyboard player and the pioneer of synthesizers. He has also composed music for eleven feature films and some five hundred documentaries. After 1989, he became the producer of the first film financed by private funds (Tank Battalion). In 1988, he founded the multimedia group Bonton, which became a dominant player in the entertainment market. In recent times, this conglomerate of eighteen companies has found new owners. Kratochvíl is fully engaged in performing, composing and recording music and documentary films in his Budíkov studio. He is an avid lover of mountaineering in the Himalayas and is also a private pilot." read more

Job Titles:

• Member of the Project Team
• Project Team Leader

The Team Leader for the Vltava Philharmonic Hall project, which was established by a resolution of the Prague City Council. He graduated from the Faculty of Civil Engineering at the Czech Technical University in Prague and from the Faculty of Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. He has a wealth of professional experience as an architect in both the Czech Republic and abroad. For many years he worked in management of the Solnice Cultural Center and the Bazilika Creative Epicenter in České Budějovice, and he created the concept and subsequent architectural design of the multi-purpose Fórum Karlín hall in Prague. Since 1989, he has owned and run the architectural atelier A8000. He lectures on architecture and regional development. He has worked in a number of international juries of architectural competitions and continues to do so. He is a guest member of the Slovak Chamber of Architects.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Project Team
• Project Secretary

She has been a member of the Vltava Philharmonic Hall team since 2022. A graduate of the University of Economics and Management in Prague, she has many years of experience as a secretary and executive support of top management and leading teams in an international environment. At CBRE Global Investors CE, she provided an internal project management assurance in the field of real estate, and as a project manager she was responsible for the project of organization, circulation and digitization of documentation related to real estate and companies of CEE funds.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Project Team
• Project Manager

Since 2019, she has led the Vltava Philharmonic Hall project within the Prague Institute of Planning and Development (IPR). She graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the Czech Technical University in Prague and also studied at TU Eindhoven. She worked at the FABRICations studio in Amsterdam that focuses on sustainable urban planning and strategies. Since 2016, she has been working at the Prague Institute of Planning and Development, where she has been involved in architectural competitions and public space projects. She participated, for example, in the project for the revitalization of Bělohorská Street, the concept for the development of the Prague Exhibition Centre, and she was in charge of a design competition for new Prague street furniture - bus stops and railings. Her professional experience includes participation in a study for the Lošbates elementary school, which won second place in an international architectural competition.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Project Team
• Information Centre Manager

She has been a member of the Vltava Philharmonic Hall team since 2022. A graduate of the Faculty of Mass Media Communication at UCM in Trnava, after several years in the USA she gained experience in the field of PR and communication in a PR agency and 10 years in a PR and marketing department of an international development company. She is also an author and a co-author of books for adults and educational publications for children. She gained experience in a non-profit sector as a co-founder of a company foundation, a youth orchestra project and in several local charitable organizations.

Job Titles:

• Director of the Prague Spring

Already the first two years of the Prague Spring International Festival were a phenomenal success. In 1946, Leonard Bernstein conducted here for the first time outside the American continent. Pianist Rudolf Firkušný performed here for the last time in Czechoslovakia for following forty four years, and composer Dmitrij Shostakovich also arrived a year later. To this day, the festival is based on the interaction and confrontation of the best of domestic and world interpretation art. It opens new horizons by presenting works by Czech and international composers in world or Czech premieres and by presenting projects that are realized in the Czech Republic for the very first time. Currently, Prague Spring is the classical music festival with the longest tradition in the Czech Republic. In 2023, it will bring its 78th year to the audience, which ranks itself among the festivals with the longest history on a global scale.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Project Team
• Project Manager

She has been a member of the Vltava Philharmonic Hall team since 2019. She graduated from the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at the Czech Technical University in Prague and also studied at ENSA in Nantes. Since 2014, she has been working at the Prague Institute of Planning and Development, City Hall, where she is engaged in the design of buildings as well as the organization of architectural contests. In Prague, she assisted in the creation of architectural studies and worked as a project manager in the revitalization of Bělohorská Street and also helped to organize an architectural competition for the transformation of Vítězné náměstí (Victory Square). She also has her own architectural practice, with a team of architects focusing on the design of public buildings. Among others, she participated in architectural studies for a swimming pool in the city of Písek, the museum of the 20th century in Berlin and an elementary school in Lošbates.

Job Titles:

• Director of the Academy of Classical Music

"Prague is a cultural metropolis of world significance and Czech music is an important part of world heritage. Although we have the Rudolfinum and Obecní d... "Prague is a cultural metropolis of world significance and Czech music is an important part of world heritage. Although we have the Rudolfinum and Obecní dům, we lack a truly high-class, large and modern concert complex. It is high time to fix it. Vltava Philharmonic Hall is an ambitious and archetypal project whose implementation would give our country the great cultural and social prestige that rightfully belongs to it." The Director of the Academy of Classical Music (AKH), he was involved in the inception of The International Dvořák Prague Music Festival, which was first held in 2008. A graduate of the Technical University in Brno, he also worked in both chambers of the Parliament of the Czech Republic in the 90's, when, when he became an MP and, at the beginning of the new millennium, a senator. Together with the intendant Vladimir Darjanin, they created and built Dvořák Prague into a project that currently ranks among the most important cultural festivals in the Czech Republic. As part of AKH's activities, he is behind the announcement of the Antonín Dvořák Award and the organization of an educational program for Czech managers in the culture sector; the Cultural Leadership Summit. In 2018, he and the current intendant Jan Simon expanded the portfolio of AKH to include other activities - the international Concertino Praga competition in cooperation with Czech Radio and the project Young Philharmonic Orchestra Dvořák Prague, based at the Summer Music Academy in Kroměříž. They also focus on publishing related activities. Since 1998, Robert Kolář has acted in the statutory body of the firm Moravské naftové doly in Hodonín and subsequently in other companies of the KKCG group.

Job Titles:

• Director of the Municipal Library

"Nearly 130 years ago, the Municipal Library in Prague was founded and is now the oldest and largest public music library in the Czech Republic. We have already been thinking about transferring it to the future Vltava Philharmonic Hall for many years. In addition to this being a logical and synergistic part of the natural center of musical life, it will also be, and in the best sense of the word, a Trojan horse which opens the doors of the Philharmonic Hall to nearly 200,000 regular users of the library. Thanks to this, the Philharmonic Hall will be an open and lively cultural space throughout the day; a place that with the interconnection of music of the highest quality and a cultivated public space will inspire other European cities."

Zdeněk Tůma graduated from the University of Economics in Prague, completing his postgraduate studies at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. At the beginning of the 1990s, he participated in the reintroduction of Economics education at Charles University where he was appointed an Associate Professor. He continues to lecture at Charles University, specialising in central banking and financial regulation. He was Chief Economist at Patria Finance and in 1998, moved to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development as a member of the Executive Board. In February 1999, Zdeněk was appointed Vice-Governor of the Czech National Bank and in December 2000, became Governor, serving in this position until 2010. He was a partner at KPMG Czech Republic from 2011-2019, focusing on consulting in the financial sector. He is currently Chairman of the Supervisory Board of ČSOB. He is also a member of the scientific and statutory boards of several universities and a member of the Czech Economic Society, of which he was President from 1999-2001.