Petr Popelka opens 2024/25 season as Chief Conductor of Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra

On 30 September, Petr Popelka returns to his home country Czechia to conduct the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, where he is Chief Conductor and Artistic Director, to conduct the opening concert of their 2024/25 season. Petr will mark the Year of Czech Music 2024 with Dvořák’s Violin Concerto, for which he will be joined by soloist Isabelle Faust. The programme will also comprise Shostakovich’s towering Symphony No. 5, as well as the world premiere of a new symphonic poem by another Czech composer, Jan Klusák.

Shostakovich wrote his Fifth Symphony in response to Stalin’s famously damning Pravda article denouncing the composer, and subtitled it “a Soviet artist’s reply to just criticism”. Dvořák also suffered criticism of his Violin Concerto, with the intended soloist and dedicatee Joseph Joachim never performing it.

This autumn, Petr’s concerts with the orchestra will include the culmination of their cycle of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde with the climactic third act, a celebration of Bohuslav Martinů with Josef Špaček, and a choral extravaganza for Advent, featuring massed choirs of 1,000 voices.