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Festivals of classical music in the Czech Republic.

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Currently as many as two hundred festivals of classical music take place in the Czech Republic every year, thirty-six in Prague alone. Our brief chronological overview can only hint at all the outstanding music that you can encounter in the Czech Lands throughout the year, and not only in Prague and other big towns. Even smaller but architecturally notable places such as Litomysl, Kromeriz, Cesky Krumlov and many others have a rich musical tradition that is gradually being revived in local festivals. The following selection is offered as an inspiration for visitors to the Czech Republic.

2nd-6th March 2008, Brno

The Exposition of New Music (www.enh.cz)

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Focused on contemporary music, the Exposition is part of the International Brno Music Festival (see below). The aim of the Exposition of New Music is to give audiences an opportunity to get to know current ideas and trends in contemporary music at home and abroad, and to provide musical experiences that visitors rarely have the chance to encounter in normal concert life elsewhere. The festival is always conceived in terms of a particular theme, and the titles of the different years in themselves convey the difference between the music presented and normal production (1994: New Pulsation, 1996: Against the Current, 2005: Pleasure of Different hearing, 2007: So what ...? A Non-academic approach), and an unusual focus in terms of content (1995: Teatromusica, 1998: Unexpected Meetings, 2002: Roots in Rock, 2003: Echoes of Nature). The programmes are built on the participation of top international musicians and ensembles. The Exposition of New Music aspires to be a kind of counterweight to commercialised culture and the museum-like concept of conventional concert life. It puts the emphasis on original creativity and seeks to reveal the links between contemporary currents of thought. This year's 21st festival, entitled Between. Pop and Non-Pop, is designed to show that contemporary techniques of composition and the new technical equipment are erasing the hitherto apparently impermeable borders between genres.

29th March-6th April 2008, Prague

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Prague Premieres (www.pragueprermeres.eu)

As early as the 1950s festivals were founded in Prague, Brno, Ostrava, and Pilsen to showcase new pieces by domestic authors. Their main problem was the absence of the chance to compare these with foreign work, and to add to their difficulties, from 1990 orchestral premieres were ruled out for financial reasons. The Czech Philharmonic has tried to rectify the situation since 2004 by organising the spring festival known as Prague Premieres. The first two years of the festival were devoted to a cross-section of Czech, above all orchestral music from the past decade. Since its third year the festival has always presented several dozen compositions by Czech and foreign composers in all age groups and with different stylistic and intellectual orientations written in the last five years and not yet performed in Prague. In 2006 the programme included work by Czech, German, Austrian, Belgian, Luxembourgeois and Dutch composers, while the 2007 festival was focussed on the Northern Lands, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, and this year we shall have a chance to compare domestic music with new pieces by Belgian, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Swiss composers.

12th May-4th June 2008, Prague

The Prague Spring (www.festival.cz)

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The oldest, biggest and best attended of Czech festivals, the Prague Spring has become a national institution just like the Prague National Theatre and the Czech Philharmonic, which organised the festival's first year to mark the 50th anniversary of its own founding and with the National Theatre's opera has continued to be one of...