Classical stars in the making

"It's globalization," Tomáš Čistecký says with a proud grin.

It's also a first for Young Prague, the annual showcase of promising classical musicians that Čistecký, a clarinet player with the National Theater orchestra, helps organize. The festival has strong ties with Japanese music schools and typically features a mix of outstanding young Czech and Japanese talent, with the odd American or European in the mix.

This year, the organizers cast their net wider and came up with some intriguing hybrids.

Piano player Miyuji Kaneko, 19, has a Japanese father and Hungarian mother, as well as a Hungarian grandmother who was the director of the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Budapest. Kaneko started playing at the age of 3, and won his first competition award when he was 11. Violinist Mohamed Hiber, a precocious 14-year-old, is of mixed French and Tunisian heritage and has been studying in Paris since the age of 7.

Kaneko and Hiber will be playing together at the Rudolfinum in the closing concert of the festival (Sept. 15), which also features French oboe player Armel Descotte, Czech bassoon player Václav Vonášek and Slovak conductor Michaela Rózsová leading the Prague Chamber Symphony Orchestra in a tasty program of Bach, Saint-Saens, Weber and Liszt. The bill also includes a young Czech composer, Jaroslav Pelikán, who will premiere a new work titled Allegro.

There's a lot of interesting music preceding that finale, some of it outside of Prague. Along with an opportunity to play at prestigious venues like the Rudolfinum and Wallenstein Palace, the festival gives its young stars a chance to shine on the road. The "spa tour" portion of this year's schedule will take them to Bad Schandau, Germany (Sept. 2), Františkovy Lázně (Sept. 4) and Teplice (Sept. 10).

But you need not travel to hear the players, who are all scheduled to make appearances in Prague. The festival opens here at fabulous Knight's Hall in Wallenstein Palace with a program worthy of the regal setting (Sept. 3). The Orbis Trio, a group of young Czechs, will be playing piano trios by Haydn and Brahms. Then Japanese clarinet player Haruka Sakurada will take on Mozart's enchanting Quintet for Clarinet and Strings in A major, backed by the local FAMA string quartet (which includes expat Japanese players Aki Kuroshima on violin and Emi Ito on viola).

The schedule always includes a jazz concert, which is at a great venue this year, the Černá Labuť Café atop the Bílá Labuť department store on Na Poříčí (Sept. 8). Groove Inn, a young Czech combo, will be covering songs by pop stars like Stevie Wonder and Antonio Carlos Jobim, with Slovak vocalist Tereza Rajnincová at the microphone. The venues swing from the hip to the sublime the following day, when the Meotis Quartet, a Hungarian string quartet, plays Haydn and Debussy at Villa Bertramka.

In the first of two concerts at the Rudolfinum, two duos will perform in Suk Hall, the small hall for chamber music (Sept. 11). Czechs Helena Chejnová on viola and Jiří Janík on piano will play songs by Schumann and Prokofiev's difficult suite from the ballet Romeo and Juliet. The evening concludes with an interesting combination, Austrian cellist Matthias Bartolomey and Japanese pianist Yukari Takai performing a Brahms sonata.

In a city where festivals come and go, it's worth noting that this is the 18th year for Young Prague, which Čistecký calls "a nice number." It's also a measure of the caliber of the festival, which despite the age of its players gives away nothing in quality.

"We lost some sponsors this year, but the quality of the programs and players is still quite good," says Shihoko Finda, a flute player and concert organizer who helps Čistecký recruit the musicians and compile the dramaturgy for Young Prague.

Another measure of the festival's caliber is the larger audiences it has been attracting since the organizers moved it from late August to early September. "That means we are not getting tourists, but local people with a serious interest in classical music," Čistecký says.

And the audiences are getting something unique in return. "There's a different energy about these concerts," says Finda. "With all these young performers, it's not like the regular season. These are something special."

Take in some of the Young Prague performances this year and see for yourself.

Frank Kuznik can be reached at
fkuznik@praguepost.com