Finalists of the competition Virtuosos V4+
30 years of Visegrád Four
On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the foundation of the Visegrád Four the finalists of the television competition Virtuosos Visegrád 4+ will make an appearance. The popular show of young talents of classical music was held in Hungary for six years under the name Virtuosos. However, in 2020 the organizers decided to organize the competition on an international scale. Young artists from the Visegrád countries came to Budapest and talents from Serbia were also invited. The whole competition was broadcast in autumn of last year by ČT Art. The five most talented winners will appear in front of the audience at the Castle Riding Hall accompanied by the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Slovak conductor Peter Valentovič, who is also a member of the jury of this competition.
Artists
Ajna Marosz (SK) – fipple flute, Dawid Siwiecki (PL) – accordion, Eduard Kollert (CZ) – violin, Ildiko Rozsonits (HU) – piano, Martin Šulc (CZ) – accordion, Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Peter Valentovič
Program
Ajna Marosz
Marek Pastírik: Concertino piccolo for fipple flute and chambre orchestra on the theme by Dario Castello, Czech premiere – dedicated to Ajna Marosz / 1st movement Fantasia, 2nd movement Passacaglia, 3rd movement Capriccio
Dawid Siwiecki
J. Madrawski: Concerto for accordion, strings and kettledrums, / 2nd movement Largo, E. Derbenko: Rock Toccata for solo accordion, V. Zolotarev: Rondo capriccioso for solo accordion
Eduard Kollert
E. W. Korngold: Concerto for violin and orchestra in D major, Op. 35 / 3rd movement Finale.Allegro assai vivace, P. de Sarasate – Zigeunerweisen Op.20
Intermission
Ildikó Rozsonits
F. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: Concerto for piano and orchestra No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25 / 1st movement Molto allegro con fuoco, 2nd movement Andante, 3rd movement Presto-Molto allegro Vivace, F. Chopin: Andante Spianato in E-flat major, Op.22
Martin Šulc
I.Albeniz: Asturias (Leyenda) “Suite espaňola” Op. 47, adapted for accordion and orchestra – instrumentation: T. Ille, A. Piazzolla: Suite Punta del Este
Martin Šulc
Martin Šulc is a young Czech musician, who was born in Třeboň – small town in South Bohemian, but he is already captured the whole world with his accordion. Martin is studying on Prague conservatory in the graduate year, he is 19 years old and actually he won a unique international television show Virtuosos V4+.
He started to play the accordion when he was six. Already in 2011, he participated in national competition of music schools in Czech Republic, where he won. This success was followed by many laureate titles from international competitions in Czech and abroad. At the competition in Rajecké Teplice he won 1st prize 4 times in a row. Martin received the Talent of South Bohemian award for 2013; he is regular participant in the masterful summer courses Třeboň summer meetings and he is repeatedly invited to recitals Stage of Young on international music festival Třeboňská nocturna.
After successful talent exams he joined the class of prof. Ladislav Horák at Prague conservatory. In the same year he won the 1st prize on international accordion competition in Ostrava and he performed at prestigious venues, such as Prague castle, or Bohuslav Martinů hall at HAMU.
The following year he established the 1st prize at the international Accordion Days competition in Prague with players from 15 countries of Europe. This prize opened him the way to the prestigious stages – he was hosted at international festival in Stockholm; he begun working with Dvořák institute in Prague. Then he won the international accordion competition in Portuguese Alcobaca and he performed in the final round of the CIA Global accordion competition in Shenzhen, China, and in Castelfidardo, Italy.
His dominant position in our country was confirmed a year later by winning the national competition of the Conservatory of the Czech Republic. At the end of the same year, he achieved an extraordinary success, when he received the Gold Award at the international accordion video-competition held in New Zealand.
These successes helped him win a scholarship from VIZE 97 fundation, administered by Dagmar Havlová, and they helped Martin to perform at big stages and to collaborate with leading Czech musicians – he performed at concert at the Pražská křitovatka, festival Jihočeské Nové Hrady, he performed at concert organized by worldwide CIA accordion association in the Czech museum of Music in Prague, he begun to working with Czech violinists Jaroslav Svěcený, Václav Hudeček and violoncellist Petr Nouzovský.
The biggest success for Martin became in 2020 – after the successful casting organized by Czech television, he reached the final rounds of television competition show Virtuosos V4+, which was filmed in September in Budapest. This show was broadcasted on the channel ČT ART from 27. November to 18. December. In the competition were contestant from 5 countries – Czech, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Serbia in all instruments of the classical music. The jury included world stars such as Maxim Vengerov, Gabriel Prokofjev, Coco König and in the superfinal also Maestro Placido Domingo. The Czech side was represented by Gabriela Boháčová – dramaturge of International music festival in Český Krumlov. The whole competition was a unique combination of classical music and a modern television show. Martin reached the superfinal and then, after a successful perform with orchestra, he got a 1st prize for the Czech Republic.
Ildikó Rozsonits
Ildikó was born in Budapest, Hungary in 2006. Her extraordinary talent became evident at the age of four when she learned to play on a blockflöte on her own, prompting her parents to take her to private lessons with flute artist Réka Kassai. Ildikó began her piano studies at the age of five. Building on years of outstanding achievements, she was admitted to the Liszt Music Academy’s School for Exceptional Young Talents in Budapest at the age of ten, becoming the Academy’s youngest student. She is the prize winner of numerous prestigious international piano competitions in Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Italy, Germany, Austria, Czechia, and Belgium.
David Siwiecki
David Siwiecki was born in Poland in 2006. From an early age he showed interest in music. He enjoyed playing with musical toys such as the drum, cymbals, guitar and piano. At the age of 7 he started learning to play the keyboard accordion at the School of Music in Dydnia.
He has been attending the High School of Music in Sanok for two years. Music is everything for him, it is the launching pad for everyday activities. His great passion for music and practice led to the victory in international competitions in the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, Serbia, Poland, Latvia, Italy and Spain. The victory in the Virtuosos V4+ competition and the beautiful words of the jury convinced him to believe in his abilities and inspired him to continue with further development. His dream is to be an outstanding musician.
Eduard Kollert
Born October 2002 in Tokyo
He was born into a family of musicians – his parents are pianists. His own point of initiation came when he heard his father’s concert with the violinist Josef Suk. Not quite seven years of age, Eduard began studying the violin at a music school in Prague, while his parents taught him the piano. Within a mere two years he was performing to huge acclaim as a soloist with the PKF – Prague Philharmonia; for his programme he chose one of J. S. Bach’s violin concertos and a piano concerto by L. van Beethoven, playing both during a single concert. This led to an invitation by the Spanish royal family to perform at the Palacio Real de El Pardo in Madrid, where he excelled with a solo programme for both violin and piano. The following day the concert organisers introduced him to Zakhar Bron, who invited him to attend the new Zakhar Bron Akademie in the Swiss town of Interlaken.
Eduard has been studying with professor Bron since then and he continues his studies at the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid. Eduard is the top prize winner at various international competitions – the «Young Virtuosos» held in Bulgaria, the «Nutcracker» TV contest in Russia to name just a few of them. He regularly plays at concerts and festivals in Europe, Russia, Jordan and Japan at events like Interlaken Classics, Moscow Meets Friends Festival, Festival Young Prague, Bohuslav Martinů Festival and Prague Spring Festival. Eduard is often invited by orchestras for concerto performances and concert tours. He has been the guest of numerous TV and radio programmes.
In December 2020 he appeared in a multi-episodic TV Talent Show «Virtuosos» alongside world stars like Plácido Domingo, Thomas Gottschalk or Ida Nowakowska. Eduard also stars in a new documentary film «Talent».
Ajna Marosz
She was born in 2007 in Martin, Slovakia. She started attending recorder lessons with Pavel Stiller at the ZUŠ L. Árvaya in Žilina when she was 5 years old. She has also played the piano since she was 8. She has earned many achievements in numerous regional and international competitions:
She won the 1st place in the national competition Čarovná flauta five times in the years 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019. In the last two years, she also won the laureate. In the international recorder competition Zahrajže nám, píšťalôčka (Nové Zámky, Slovakia) she won the 1st place three times, in 2017, 2018, 2019. She came first and she also received the mayor’s prize at the national competition Nitrianska lutna (Nitra, Slovakia) in 2019. In the international competition Rajecká hudobná jar, she received the director’s prize in 2015, and the prize of the town of Rajec in 2018.
In 2018 she participated in a piano competition named Banskoštiavnické kladivká where she got first place and also the title of laureate in four-hand piano performance. In the years 2018, 2019 and 2020 she received grants through the programme Talenty novej Európy (Talents of the New Europe). The grants enabled her to participate in summer masterclasses where she learned to play the baroque recorder with top authorities on early music such as Zoltán Széplaki and Katalin Kállay from Hungary. She achieved first place and a special prize in the László Czidra national recorder competition in Hungary in 2019. In 2019 she won first place in the global competition Open Recorder Days Amsterdam in the Netherlands. In December of 2019 she performed as a concert soloist with the Slovak Sinfonietta in Žilina.
She won the main prize in the Hungarian grant competition of the National Council for the Promotion of Talents (2020).
In 2020 she was the Slovak winner of the international talent competition Virtuosos V4+. In 2020/2021 she won the first prizes in the International Moscow Music Competition, the Lams Matera Award Online Edition (Italy), the Iscart International Music Competition (Switzerland), the Citta di Massa International Competition for Young Musicians (Italy), the Danubia Talents “Wiener Klassiker” (Austria), the Odin International Music Online Competition. In July of 2021 she performed as a concert soloist with the Solamente naturali at the Viva musica! Festival in Bratislava.
The Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonics
The Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic Orchestra is professional symphony orchestra. It is based in the Zlín Congress Centre. The repertoire of the orchestra includes big symphony works as well as compositions other than classical music (chanson, jazz, rock, pop and film music). The ensemble cooperates with numerous leading Czech and foreign conductors (Petr Altrichter, Jakub Hrůša, Tomáš Hanus, Tomáš Netopil, Stanislav Vavřínek, Jakub Klecker, Vojtěch Spurný, Robert Kružík and many others). Tomáš Brauner has been its chief conductor since the 2018-19 season. Leoš Svárovský is the main guest conductor. Important soloists that have performed alongside the orchestra include Mstislav Rostropovich, Daniel Schafran, Mischa Maisky, Vadim Repin, Jennifer Larmore, Eugen Indjić, Sergei Krylov, Libuše Domanínská, Josef Suk, Ivan Moravec, Dagmar Pecková, Magdalena Kožená and Fazil Say; in recent years the orchestra has accompanied Roland Villazón, Montserrat Caballé, Olga Peretyatko, Joseph Calleja, Angela Gheorghiu, Pretty Yende, Adam Plachetka and others. It performs almost in the entire Europe and around the world (2016, 2018 India, 2017 South Korea). Since 1972 the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic Orchestra has been the organizer of the unique international festival of young concert artists Talentinum and also organizes the autumn international music festival Harmonia Moraviae.
Castle Riding Hall
Come and enjoy a concert at the unforgettable and unique Castle Riding Hall, which is part of the Český Krumlov Castle close to the castle garden. You will fall in love with this singular building and its surroundings and you will feel as if you were in the Viennese imperial court in the 18th century. After […]
