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Cream of the crop

An international cast of young classical stars takes center stage
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By Frank Kuznik
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
August 22nd, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Jiří Vodička won his first competition when he was 14.
COURTESY PHOTO
From Japan, Yu Kurokawa.
Young Prague

When: Aug. 25–Sept. 11
Where: Various venues
Tickets: 100–250 Kč, available through Ticketpro, Via Musica and at the venues
For individual concerts, see the Calendar listings; for a complete schedule, check www.mladapraha.cz

The unofficial start of the fall performing arts season kicks off this weekend with the opening concert of Mladá Praha (Young Prague), the annual showcase of promising classical musicians from Europe and Japan. The idea and the timing are note-perfect: Before all the major orchestras and big names dominate the cultural calendar, Mladá Praha offers young performers a chance to show what they can do in both solo and ensemble performances. There are six concerts scheduled in Prague, and seven in smaller towns throughout the Czech Republic and Germany.
As always, the inimitable Professor Yoshifumi Nakajima from the Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo is bringing a coterie of his best talent, though with a notable absence this year — no choir. The angelic voices of his singers have been a staple of the festival in years past, but presented a scheduling problem. With school in Japan starting in early September, the festival had to be held in August, when audiences in Prague are scarce. This year most of the concerts have been moved to September, which meant leaving the choir behind.
While that changed the programming a bit, there’s no lack of interesting young talent coming from Japan. Violinist Yu Kurokawa won the 55th All-Japan Student Violin Competition in 2001, when he was just 11 years old. Cellist Yuko Noda, at 23, is already an accomplished soloist and chamber music performer who has been winning awards since she took first place at the 1999 Youth Music Competition in Zurich. Trumpet player Yasuko Tanaka, 23, has been studying at the Prague Conservatory since 2004, and last year won a student competition in Ostrava. And pianist Luiko Yoshimoto, at the tender age of 15, already has seven years’ experience playing in competitions, taking first place at the Brooklyn Arts Council Competition for Young Pianists in 2003.
The Czech roster also includes amazingly young stars, including budding violin virtuoso Jiří Vodička, 19; prize-winning French horn player Jana Řeřichová, 26; and the string duo of violinist Jakub Junek, 19, and cellist Ivan Vokáč, 20, who blew everyone away in winning Czech Radio’s International Young Musicians competition last year. To sweeten the mix, there are additional young players from Russia, France, Switzerland and Hungary. And one of the highlights of the festival is always the Young Prague Chamber Ensemble, a mix of Czech and foreign musicians.
New on the schedule this year is a jazz concert at an upscale setting, the Hotel Aria. “Every big festival has a crossover concert now,” Mladá Praha President Tomáš Čistecký, a clarinet player with the National Theater orchestra, says by way of explanation. This one features the Libor Šmoldas Quartet. Šmoldas, 25, is a guitar player who has been active on the local jazz scene since the mid-’90s, and in 2005 won a scholarship to the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston.
“Mladá Praha is a good step in the career of young musicians,” notes Norbert Heller, a pianist and co-organizer of the festival. “And for many of the foreign performers, it’s very exciting to have the opportunity to play in Prague.”
Along with nurturing and promoting young careers, the organizers are trying to draw one of the most elusive audiences in classical music. “We’re hoping that the young players will attract a young audience,” Čistecký says.
That’s a tough nut; like those at many classical music events, the audiences at Mladá Praha concerts are typically a mix of families and friends of the performers, teachers and classical music fans, who by definition are almost always middle-aged and older. But the festival has something that many do not — a good set of sponsors, which is the key to longevity and building an audience. Major corporate sponsors include Panasonic, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Lexus. The festival also has a fine pedigree in its current president, the world-famous Czech violinist Josef Suk, and his predecessor, the late Lubomir Kostecký, a member of the esteemed Smetana Quartet.
That helps explain why the festival is now in its 16th year, forging ahead with its original purpose still in the forefront: “We have very young musicians, and the idea of the festival is to open the music world for them,” Heller says.
It’s also to put on interesting concerts in historic venues, which is what Mladá Praha does best. The next two weeks offer a great opportunity to hear those performances and catch rising young stars before they graduate to the big stage.

Frank Kuznik can be reached at fkuznik@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (22/08/2007):

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