The Antonín Dvořák Music Festival

The festival website and the programme for this year’s edition

The Antonín Dvořák Music Festival boasts a long-standing tradition, during which its organisers have succeeded in establishing it as a cultural event of the highest calibre and of paramount importance in the towns where it is held. It was founded in 1969 on the initiative of the Antonín Dvořák Society (then chaired by Dr Karel Mikysa) and the District Cultural Centre in Příbram, which had been promised financial support by the Ministry of Culture. And this support was by no means insignificant, as it enabled the organisers to invite orchestras such as the Czech Philharmonic, the Prague Symphony Orchestra (FOK), the Prague Chamber Orchestra, the Slovak Philharmonic and the Film Symphony Orchestra. However, the festival during those years also featured a whole host of outstanding ensembles from abroad. The people of Příbram were thus also able to witness top-class performances by, for example, the Leningrad Philharmonic and the Moscow State Philharmonic; last but not least, the Warsaw State Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra London also visited, conducted by Mark Emler, Charles Groves, Arvid Jansons and Dimitri Kitayenko. After 1989, however, as in the cultural sphere as a whole, significant organisational changes took place here too. From 1990, the Příbram Theatre took over its organisation.

In 1996, the Antonín Dvořák Music Festival Foundation was established. Its remit was to raise funds, devise an engaging programme and, through appropriate promotion, increase interest amongst Příbram’s audience in the festival concerts. However, the foundation operated only until 1998, when a new law on foundations came into force, making their existence conditional upon having a permanent endowment of 500,000 CZK. Consequently, the Příbram Theatre once again took the festival under its wing. In 2001, the organisation of the festival was taken over by the Department of Education, Youth, Culture and Sport at the Příbram Municipal Authority – now the Department of Education, Culture, Sport and Information Services – which continues to organise the festival in collaboration with the festival committee.

The leading figure in the organisation of the A. Dvořák International Music Festival was PhDr. Vladimír Vepřek. He had full responsibility for the programme and developed it into one of the most highly regarded classical music festivals in the country.

Previous editions of the festival featured no more than 12 concerts; however, the programme included not only works by Antonín Dvořák but also a number of compositions less commonly featured at the festival.

Attendance figures for the festival as a whole are very respectable, partly because many of the concerts – apart from those by large orchestras or choral ensembles, which perform in the main auditorium of the A. Dvořák Theatre in Příbram – are held in unusual, yet all the more attractive, venues located not only in the town but also in the surrounding area.

The Antonín Dvořák Music Festival has firmly established itself in the consciousness of Příbram’s culturally-minded public and is gaining ever greater respect within Czech musical circles. This is evidenced by offers of collaboration from prominent Czech and international performers. The festival’s aim, of course, remains to commemorate the valuable work of Master Antonín Dvořák and to introduce the Příbram audience to a representative selection of other works from Czech and international musical repertoire.