Smetana 200 - A Grand Gala Celebration

Celebrating Bedřich Smetana’s 200th anniversary 2024

Live signal available, 8 June 2024, 8:15 pm CET

From the Festival Hall in Litomysl, Czech Republic

Bedrich Smetana (2 March 1824 – 12 May 1884) is regarded as the founder of Czech music. His father, a brewer to Count Waldstein, whose Renaissance castle situated close to the Festival Hall, had a natural gift for music and played in a string quartet and introduced the music to his talented son, Bedrich who soon played both violin and piano. His skills as a pianist were in great demand at the towns many soirées, and he enjoyed a hectic social life as a young man. He started early composing his own music both for piano, string quartet, orchestra, and later in life, opera. Internationally he is best known for his opera The Bartered Bride and for the symphonic cycle Ma vlast (My Homeland), which portrays the history legends and landscape of the composer’s native Bohemia. It contains the famous symphonic poem “Vltava”, also known by its English name “The Moldau”

In an entertaining gala show Bedrich Smetana is celebrated with orchestra-, string quartet- and opera music, and with soloists on the piano and violin. Introducing La Putyka new circus acrobats and the magnificent Ukraine sand artist Kseniya Simonova.