Jiri Belohlavek

The low-key maestro

You may have trouble with the name (Yeer-zhee Bee-ell-oh-hlah-veck), but this Czech conductor has become major fixture on the international music scene – as he fêted at the Met in New York as he is at the helm of the BBC Symphony or in the intimate surroundings of Glyndebourne. His repertoire is broad with a lively interest in new music as well as the ‘core’ classics, but it is in music of Central Europe that he is at his finest shedding new light on some magnificent corners of the repertoire. 

Timeline

1946 Born February 24. In youth studies cello with Milos Sádlo, and attends the Prague Conservatory and Academy of Performing Arts in Prague

1968-70 Studies conducting with Sergiu Celibidache as his assistant in Sweden

1972-78 Works regularly with the Brno Philharmonic

1977-89 Chief Conductor of the Prague Symphony Orchestra

1990-92 Principal Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic

1993 Founds the Prague Philharmonia, a chamber orchestra, performing in public for the first time in 1994

1995-2000 Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchetsra

2004 Brings Prague Philharmonia to BBC Proms. Makes his Met debut with Janácek’s Kát’a Kabanová

2006 Apppointed Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, a position he still holds

2008 Receives a Classic FM Gramophone Award (Opera) live recording with the BBC SO of Janácek’s The Excursions of Mr Broucek (DG)

2009 (Summer) Conducting Dvorak’s Rusalka at Glyndebourne. Also conducting three Proms

Select discography

Dvorak Cello Concerto Jean-Guihan Queyras; Prague Philharmonia (Harmonia Mundi) Read review

Dvorak Symphony No 6. The Wood Dove Czech PO (Chandos) Read review

Dvorak Stabat mater. Psalm 149 Czech PO (Chandos) Read review

Janacek Taras Bulba. The cunning little vixen – suite. Jealousy. The fiddler's child Czech PO (Chandos) Read review

Janacek The Excursions of Mr Broucek BBC SO (DG) Read review

Martinu Symphony No 4. Field Mass. Memorial to Lidice Czech PO (Chandos) Read review

Suk Asrael Symphony Czech PO (Chandos) Read review

 

Belohlavek in Gramophone

February 1992 Jiri Belohlavek talks to David Nice Read interview

 

 

Essential discography

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