Celebrate the Year of Czech Music with pianist Matyáš Novák. This brilliant young musician has won a range of national and international competitions and performed throughout Europe, the United States, and Eastern Asia. In this concert, he will perform a selection of Czech music. Presented in cooperation with the Embassy of the Czech Republic.
This program is performed at 1:00 and 3:00 p.m.
About Matyáš Novák
Born in Hradec Králové in the Czech Republic in 1998, Matyáš Novák began playing piano and violin at age five. He began his studies under Jitka Fowler Fraňková at Pardubice Conservatory in the Czech Republic and graduated from Italy’s Imola International Piano Academy in 2022. He now attends Prague’s Academy of Performing Arts.
Novák is the winner of numerous national and international piano competitions and has performed in several festivals worldwide since 2010, including the Vienna Concerto Fest, the Ibiza International Music Festival, and the Bangkok International Piano Festival. He has been a featured soloist with such ensembles as the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra and Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra, and has performed extensively in the Czech Republic, as well as throughout Europe, Thailand, and the United States.
Notable career highlights include his successful concert tours in China; recordings featuring Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage: Première année: Suisse in 2017 and Mozart’s piano concertos K. 413, 414, and 415 with the Czech Wihan Quartet in 2021; a 2017 debut at New York’s Carnegie Hall; and recent placement as a semi-finalist at the International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in Utrecht, Netherlands.
1:00 p.m. program
Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884)
Selections from Czech Dances
Josef Suk (1874-1935)
Song of Love, op. 7, no. 1
Leoš Janáček (1854-1928)
Sonata 1. X. 1905 (“From the Street”)
Smetana / M. Novák
Vltava
3:00 p.m. program
Antonin Dvořák (1841-1904)
Poetic Tone Pictures, op. 85
Suk
Song of Love, op. 7, no. 1
J. L. Dusík (1760-1812)
Piano Sonata, no. 24, op. 61 (“Elégie harmonique”)
Smetana / M. Novák
Vltava
Programs are subject to change.