Digital Programmes

Semyon Bychkov's tenure as Chief Conductor and Music Director of the Czech Philharmonic was initiated in 2018 with concerts in Prague, London, New York and Washington, marking the 100th anniversary of Czechoslovak independence. With the culmination of The Tchaikovsky Project the following year, Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic turned their focus to Mahler, and the first release in a new cycle of the symphonies – Mahler’s Fourth Symphony – will be released by PENTATONE next month.   

With a repertoire that spans four centuries, Bychkov’s highly anticipated performances are a unique combination of innate musicality and rigorous Russian pedagogy. He holds honorary titles with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Academy of Music and is a frequent guest with all the major international orchestras. International Opera Awards named him ‘Conductor of the Year’ in 2015 and this year he will receive an Honorary Doctorate from the Royal Academy of Music.   

Bychkov began his recording career with the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio, Royal Concertgebouw, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic and Orchestre de Paris. A series of benchmark recordings with WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne followed, including the four Brahms Symphonies as well as works by Strauss, Mahler, Shostakovich, Rachmaninov, Verdi, Glanert and Höller. Bychkov’s 1992 recording of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin was recommended by BBC Radio 3’s Building a Library in 2020, and his 2009 recording of Wagner’s Lohengrin was awarded BBC Music Magazine’s Record of the Year (2010).        

The CBSO Chorus is one of the world’s great choirs – 200 people from all walks of life who come together to sing symphonic choral music. Trained for over 35 years by Simon Halsey CBE, it’s a hard-working team of 'amateur professionals' who give up their own time to perform the most challenging works in the choral repertoire to the highest international standard.

The Chorus was founded in 1973, and its main role has been to perform with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra: singing at the official opening of Symphony Hall in 1991 and giving centenary performances of all three of Elgar’s great choral works The Dream of Gerontius, The Apostles and The Kingdom. In 2012 it gave the 50th anniversary performance of Britten’s War Requiem at Coventry Cathedral under Andris Nelsons – a performance that was broadcast live to 17 countries. 

But the CBSO Chorus is in demand far beyond Birmingham. It’s toured to Europe, Asia, Australia and North America, singing with some of the greatest orchestras in the world, including the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra, and has built a special relationship with the BBC Philharmonic. With over 50 recordings to its credit, the CBSO Chorus has won four Gramophone awards.

All this has been achieved by amateur singers from Birmingham and the Midlands, aged from 18 years old, whose day-jobs range from students to nurses, teachers and engineers.

Evelina Dobračeva began her career under the tuition of Professor Norma Sharp, Snezana Brzakovic and Professor Julia Varady at the Hanns Eisler Music College in Berlin.

Evelina’s discography includes Dargomyzhki’s Rusalka recorded with the WDR in Cologne, conducted by Mikhail Jurowski and Britten’s War Requiem recorded with the Nederlands Radio PO. She also features on the Rachmaninov Songs disc recorded with the pianist Iain Burnside, released on Delphian.

Recent highlights have included a return to the Cincinnati Opera for Tosca, Schoenberg’s Erwartung with Capella Cracoviensis, Shostakovich Symphony No 14 at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino under Michail Jurowski, Britten’s War Requiem with the BBC Philharmonic, Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Het Gelders Orkest and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Rachmaninov’s The Bells with Accademia Santa Cecilia Orchestra, Otello with Centro Cultural de Belém, and Mahler’s Symphony No 8 with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra as well as debuting in Maid of Pskov at Grange Park Opera.

Czech mezzo-soprano Lucie Hilscherová is a guest at the National Theatre in Prague, the Moravian-Silesian National Theater in Ostrava, the JK Tyl Theatre in Pilsen, the Silesian Theatre in Opava, the State Theatre in Košice and the Nationaltheater Mannheim. She also introduced herself as Háta in The Bartered Bride in Tokyo and in London. She is one of the most sought-after concert singers in the field of song and oratorio, and she also enjoys interpreting compositions by contemporary authors. Her wide repertoire includes Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Missa Solemnis, Rossini's Stabat Mater, Mahler's Second Symphony and Song of the Earth, Dvořák's Stabat Mater and Requiem, Verdi's Requiem, Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky, Janáček's Glagolitic Mass and Stravinsky's Les Noces. 
 
She has collaborated with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Bach-Collegium Stuttgart, Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR, the Czech Philharmonic, PKF-Prague Philharmonia, the Prague Symphony Orchestra, Collegium 1704 and the Brno Philharmonic.

She has had the honour of singing under the batons of Helmuth Rilling, Alexander Vedernikov, Kazushi Ono, Jan Latham-Koenig, Cornelius Meister, Enrico Dovico, Kaspar Zehnder, Libor Pešek, Jiří Bělohlávek, Tomáš Netopil, Petr Vronský, Petr Fiala, Leoš Svárovský and others. She has performed at the festivals Musikfest Stuttgart, Beethovenfest Bonn, Grafenegg Musik-Sommer, Prague Spring, Easter Festival of Sacred Music Brno, Smetana's Litomyšl and St Wenceslas Music Festival.

Czech tenor of Aleš Briscein started the 2021-22 season as Anatol Kuraguin in a new production of Prokofiev’s War and Peace directed by Calixto Bieito in Geneva. He is a guest at many theatres and festivals in his home country, in roles such as Jiri in Dvorák‘s Jakobin, Ladislav in Smetana‘s Two Widows, Prince in Rusalka, Conte di Albafloria in Martinu‘s Mirandolina, Jaromér in Fibich’s Pád Arkuna, Lukas in Smetana’s The Kiss, Alfredo in La Traviata, as Pollione in Bellini’s Norma, the title role of Lohengrin, and lately Eric in Der fliegende Holländer.
 
Aleš Briscein was a guest at the Opéra de Bastille in Paris for many years, where he performed, among others, roles like Kedril in From the House of the Dead, Jeník in The Bartered Bride, and Kudriash in Kátia Kabanová. He has also been a guest in Nürnberg, Vancouver, Tokyo, Cyprus, Lille, Caen, Antwerp, Valencia, Vienna, London, Berlin and Frankfurt. Aleš Briscein works with conductors such as Christoph von Dohnanyi, Valeri Gergiev, John Fiore, Sylvain Cambreling, Kent Nagano, Tomas Netopil, Esa Pekka Salonen, David Zinman, and Sir John Eliot Gardiner. His concert repertoire includes Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Missa Solemnis, Dvořák’s Stabat Mater, as well as Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass.

Bass-baritone Boris Prýgl ranks among the most talented Czech young singers. He successfully went through the Young Artists programme of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, where he has assumed roles including Morales in Carmen, Ping in Turandot, the prince Ottokar in Der Freischütz, and the Hunter in Rusalka.

He studied with Zlatica Livorová and graduated from the Academy of Music in Bratislava, Slovakia, in the class of Peter Mikuláš. He gained his first stage experience at the Slovak National Theatre, where he introduced himself as Leporello in Don Giovanni, Don Basilio in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Don Fernando in Fidelio, Pietro in Simon Boccanegra, Brander in La damnation de Faust, and the title role in Paisiello’s opera Il re Teodoro in Venezia.  

Boris Prýgl is a laureate of several singing competitions and the winner of the 2015 Antonín Dvořák Singing Competition in Karlovy Vary, where he also received several special awards including the Prague National Theatre Award and the Prague Spring IMC Award. He took 2nd place at the Ferruccio Tagliavini Competition in Austria, along with an award for the best interpretation of Mozart. In July 2017, he was a finalist in two prestigious competitions: Belvedere and Plácido Domingo’s Operalia. In September 2019, he was granted the award of the then Director of the Vienna State Opera Dominique Meyer at the Stella Maris Vocal Competition.

Daniela Valtová Kosinová graduated from the Conservatory in Pardubice and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. She is Principal organist of the Prague Symphony Orchestra. In addition to a busy concert schedule across Europe, Daniela Valtová Kosinová is a frequent guest at music festivals like Prague Spring, the Smetanova Litomyšl and the Leoš Janáček International Music Festival. As a soloist in Janáček's Glagolitic Mass, she has already performed with the Prague
Symphony Orchestra, Czech Philharmonie and the Flemish Symphony Orchestra. She also developed this with the mezzo-soprano Jarmila Kosinová and the actor Jan Potměšil Concert program Music Between the Words. She also composes; In 2010 she published the jazz album Meeting Point.