Janacek Philharmonic Ostrava

Mezzo-soprano Bella Adamová and pianist Michael Gees invite you to a song recital entitled There is Home — a sensitive musical journey dedicated to the search for home in its various forms. The program will feature songs by Pavel Haas, Gustav Mahler, Modest Mussorgsky, Benjamin Britten, as well as original improvisations on texts by world poets and the singer herself. For Bella Adamová, a native of Chechnya, music is the right place where she feels truly at home.

The concert opens with Smetana’s Vltava, a symphonic poem that masterfully portrays the natural beauty and historical significance of the Czech river. It will be followed by Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto, an early work that combines brilliant piano virtuosity with heroic themes that would later reappear in his Eroica.

French pianist Lucas Debargue will present himself to the Ostrava audience not only as a performer but also as a composer. His program will offer Ravel’s delicately painted “Fountains” and the stylistically refined Sonatina, the poetic and dramatic piano miniatures of Gabriel Fauré and Debargue’s own Suite in D minor. The evening will culminate with Scriabin’s Third Piano Sonata, a captivating work full of emotions and virtuoso contrasts.

A concert of fresh American rhythms and Nordic romanticism awaits under the baton of Canadian conductor Tania Miller. From the American continent come Copland’s celebrated Appalachian Spring and his Clarinet Concerto, performed by Pablo Barragán. The second half of the evening will be filled with the power, beauty, and lyricism of the Finnish landscape in Jean Sibelius’s First Symphony.