The kids are all right

Young Prague Chairman Tomáš Čistecký arrives for an interview fresh from a meeting at the National Theater, where he is a clarinet player in the orchestra. The news is not good: Culture Minister Jiří Besser told the entire staff they would be taking 10 percent pay cuts this year.

"It's not just the theater, it's everyone who works for the government - tram drivers, hospital workers, everybody," he says with a resigned shrug. "What can you do?"

Fortunately, Young Prague, the annual showcase of promising young classical musicians from Europe and Japan, doesn't depend on government largesse. Now in its 19th year, it has a first-class pedigree, with supporters like world-renowned Czech violinist Josef Suk, Czech Senate President Přemysl Sobotka and Japanese Ambassador Chikahito Harada. It has a great Japanese connection in Professor Yoshifumi Nakajima, a composer and instructor at Tokyo's Kunitachi College of Music, who brings some of his best students to Prague every year. And it has sponsors like Toyota, Panasonic and Kirin Beer, who provide funding for 11 concerts, most of them free, in historic venues in Prague and five other cities in the Czech Republic.

As for the caliber of the performers, Čistecký is dead-on when he says, "Quality has never been a problem." Selected during a yearlong screening process, these kids can play, often far beyond what their ages would suggest. This year's lineup includes a 2010 Prague Spring laureate (in the violin competition), a pint-size French horn player who has already won several international competitions and the principal flutist of the University of Buffalo Symphony Orchestra.

The festival opened this past weekend in Srbská Kamenice, but Prague audiences will be most interested in five local concerts that start Thursday night (Sept. 2) at Wallenstein Palace, where Japanese pianist Maria Togawa will give a solo recital in the first half, playing Chopin, Ravel and Liszt. The Koffein Quintett, a presumably well-caffeinated woodwind quintet from Hungary, will offer a tasty sampler in the second half ranging from Bach to 20th-century Hungarian composer Denes Agay.

At the same venue on Wednesday next week (Sept. 8), Jan Mráček, who took second place in the violin competition at Prague Spring this year, and Czech pianist Eva Košková will join the Trio di Lugano, led by Swiss pianist Jeremy Mätzener, for what should be a very lively evening of music: Gipsy Tunes by Pablo de Sarasate, a Schubert rondo, a mazurek and sonatine by Dvořák and, for the finale, Polish violin genius Henryk Wieniawski's Fantasie Brillante on themes from Gounod's Faust.

The festival moves to a new venue the following Friday (Sept. 10): Chodovská tvrz, the historic culture center in Prague 4, where Molly Shambo, the University of Buffalo flutist, will be playing with Helcea, a string quartet from Moravia. The first half of the concert offers a compendium of styles ranging from Händel to 20th-century Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. And the quartet has set up a serious challenge for itself in the second half, playing Mozart's String quartet in C major (KV 465) and Janáček's daunting String Quartet No. 1.

The finale is at the Rudolfinum the following Monday, and it's a good one. With backing from the Prague Chamber Symphony Orchestra, Japanese violinist Ryosuke Suho, Polish pianist Lukasz Trepczynski and Czech French horn player Kateřina Javůrková will have a chance to show what they can do with Tchaikovsky, Chopin and Mozart, respectively. The impressive young Japanese conductor Keita Matsui will be at the podium for all but one piece: Tek, by Hungarian composer and conductor Balázs Horváth, who will be here to lead it himself.

And for a change of pace, stop by the Black Swan café (next to Bílá Labuť on Na Poříčí) next Tuesday (Sept. 7), where young cimbalom player Petr Surmaj, a regular with Gypsy.cz, leads his own ensemble, the Petr Surmaj Quintet, in a program of Romany folk music.

Except for the wrap-up at the Rudolfinum, the concerts are all free. But that's not the main reason to go.

"This is a critical time for most of these young musicians, the knife edge where their careers could either take off or fade into obscurity," Čistecký says. "So they play with a lot of energy and enthusiasm.

"I enjoy playing, though not as much after 20 years," he admits. "But these kids really love it."

Frank Kuznik can be reached at
fkuznik@praguepost.com