American Spirituals

A very unusual form of sacred music for the Lednice-Valtice area will be presented in the Church of St. James the Elder – Martinů Voices will perform traditional American spirituals in distinctive jazz arrangements.

Martinů Voices & Lukáš Vasilek

Martinů Voices is a chamber choir founded in 2010. Its main artistic goal is the top interpretation of 19th–21st century chamber choral music, but the choir’s programming does not omit from Renaissance, Baroque and Classical music. The ensemble consists of professional singers working under artistic direction of choirmaster Lukáš Vasilek.

Martinů Voices are regular guests of the most important Czech music festivals (e.g. Prague Spring, Dvořákova Praha Music Festival, Strings of Autumn, St. Wenceslas Music Festival, Lípa Musica). For most of the times, they perform independently, but some projects are also realized in cooperation with resident orchestras and conductors. In 2014 they performed Bohuslav Martinů’s opera What People Live By together with the Czech Philharmonic and its chief conductor Jiří Bělohlávek. This artistic collaboration earned them, among others, a nomination for the prestigious International Opera Award (2015). Martinů Voices’ great successes also include their joint concert with the famous British ensemble Tallis Scholars, which took place in 2016 as part of the Dvořák Prague Festival. A year later, the choir gave the Czech premiere of the cantata Anthracite Fields, written by American Julia Wolfe, in collaboration with the Bang on a Can All-Stars ensemble (Strings of Autumn Festival).

The Supraphon recordings capture a selection of choral works by Jan Novák and Bohuslav Martinů and attracted an extraordinary response. The album of Bohuslav Martinů’s Madrigals was awarded the Diapason d’Or and received the Editor’s Choice in the prestigious British magazine Gramophone.
Lukáš Vasilek studied conducting and musicology. Since 2007 he has been the Principal Choral Conductor of the Prague Philharmonic Choir. The focus of his artistic work with this ensemble is on staging and performing a cappella repertoire, as well as preparing the choir to perform in major cantata, oratorio and opera projects, in which he collaborates with world-renowned conductors and orchestras (e.g. Berliner Philharmoniker, Czech Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic and St. Petersburg Philharmonic).

In addition to Prague Philharmonic Choir he is also involved in other artistic activities, especially his collaboration with Martinů Voices, which he founded in 2010. As a conductor or choirmaster, he has been responsible for many Prague Philharmonic Choir recordings made for major international labels (Decca Classics, Supraphon); he has consistently recorded Bohuslav Martinů’s choral works in recent years. His recordings have attracted an extraordinary response abroad and have won awards from prestigious magazines such as Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine and Diapason.