Czech National Symphony Orchestra

14-27 May 2024

Conductors: Steven Mercurio and Ilya Mashkevich

Soloists: Chloe Hanslip (violin), Mark Bebbington (piano)

Czech National Symphony Orchestra is not represented by IMG Artists

Czech National Symphony Orchestra

Over the past 30 years, the Czech National Symphony Orchestra has grown to become one of the leading Czech ensembles, and currently ranks among the most highly sought after orchestras in Europe. Its glowing reputation can be attributed to the members’ versatility to perform a wide range of genres spanning classical, film music, jazz as well as musicals which see audiences flock to hear them both locally and internationally.

Notable conductors, composers and film directors who have been collaborating with the orchestra or who worked with the orchestra at concerts and in the CNSO Studio in Prague include Lalo Schifrin, Pino Donaggio, Giuliano Taviani, Danny Elfman, Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard, Quentin Tarantino, Vince Mendoza, Giuseppe Tornatore, Carl Davis, Steven Mercurio, Marcello Rota, Vladimir Cosma, Christian Lindberg and Chick Corea.

Read more

Steven Mercurio, conductor

Maestro Steven Mercurio is an internationally acclaimed conductor and composer who is currently the Music Director of the Czech National Symphony Orchestra. Notably, Mercurio also served as Music Director of the Spoleto Festival for five years and Principal Conductor for the Opera Company of Philadelphia.  A sought after collaborator for many award winning recordings, arrangements and film projects, he received his masters from the Juilliard School.

For the stage, he has conducted more than sixty different operas in seven different languages. His engagements have taken him to many of the world’s best loved opera houses including the Teatro dell’Opera, Roma; Teatro Bellini, Catania; Teatro Filarmonico, Verona; Teatro Reggio, Torino; Teatro Verdi, Trieste; Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels, Bonn Opera, Teatro Massimo, Palermo, English National Opera as well as the American opera companies of San Francisco, Washington, Philadelphia, Seattle, Detroit, Opera Pacific, Florida Grand, Pittsburgh, Dallas and Cincinnati. In addition to Maestro Mercurio’s operatic repertoire, his symphonic appearances have spanned the globe appearing throughout Europe and the United Kingdom, with numerous Italian orchestras, Australia, the Far East and broadly throughout the United States.

Read more

Ilya Mashkevich, conductor

Conductor Ilya Mashkevich has earned an international reputation for his profound and personal musical insights as well as his powerful, singular orchestral and choral direction.

Born in Frunze, Kyrgyzstan, Mr Mashkevich began his musical education with piano. At the age of 15, he realised that his dream was to become a conductor. He first attended Gorky State Conservatory of Music where he became Chief Chorus Master. He continued his studies at the renowned St Petersburg Conservatory (then known as the Leningrad Conservatory) under the great Ilya Musin.

Read more

Chloe Hanslip, violin

Chloë Hanslip (b. 1987) has already established herself as an artist of distinction on the international stage. Prodigiously talented, she made her BBC Proms debut at fourteen and her US concerto debut at fifteen and has performed at major venues in the UK (Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall), Europe (Vienna Musikverein, Hamburg Laeiszhalle, Paris Louvre and Salle Gaveau, St Petersburg Hermitage) as well as Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Arts Space in Tokyo and the Seoul Arts Centre. 

Her performances have included the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Beethoven Orchester Bonn, Bern Symphony Orchestra, Bremen Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Lahti Symphony, Moscow State Symphony, Norwegian Radio, Real Filharmonia Galicia, Vienna Tonkünstler Orchester, Hamburg Symfoniker, Czech National Symphony, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Orchestra Regionale Toscana, Helsingborg Symphony, Royal Flemish Philharmonic and the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra. Further afield her engagements include the Cincinnati Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Houston Symphony, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, Malaysia Philharmonic, Adelaide Symphony, Auckland Philharmonina and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. She has collaborated with conductors such as Sir Andrew Davis, Mariss Jansons, Paavo Järvi, Charles Dutoit, Giordano Bellincampi, Jakub Hrusa, Pietari Inkinen, Susanna Mälkki, Gianandrea Noseda, Tadaaki Otaka, Vasily Petrenko, Vassily Sinaisky, Dmitri Slobodeniouk, Alexander Vedernikov, Juraj Valcuha and Xian Zhang. 

Read more

Mark Bebbington, piano

The critical plaudits which have greeted Mark Bebbington’s performances and recordings have singled him out as a British pianist of the rarest refinement and maturity (“Bebbington is without doubt one of Britain’s finest pianists.” wrote Michel Fleury recently in Classica).

Internationally recognised as a champion of British music, in particular, Mark has recorded extensively for the Somm label to critical acclaim, with no fewer than nine of his recent CDs awarded 5* by BBC Music Magazine. Recent CDs include three British Piano Concertos with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, an all-Gershwin album with Leon Botstein and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (‘Recording of the Month’ from MusicWeb International). A CD of Concertos by Grieg (including the premiere of his sketches for a Second Piano Concerto, edited by Robert Matthew- Walker) and Delius with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Jan Latham-Koenig was released in April 2018 and became ‘CD of the Week’ in The Times and Mail on Sunday. Most recently, Mark’s new recordings on Resonus Classics of works by Francis Poulenc with conductor Jan Latham-Koenig and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (featuring Poulenc’s Piano Concerto, the rarely-recorded piano version of the Concert champêtre, the Trio for Piano, Oboe & Bassoon, and the Sonata for Oboe & Piano) have received glowing reviews and a short-listed nomination for a Gramophone award.

Read more

More information and tickets