The final week of the Leoš Janáček International Music Festival will bring some of the greatest highlights of this year’s edition. The Vesmír venue will host the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra as well as the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice with soloist Lukáš Vondráček, whose concert is already nearly sold out. The end of the week will belong to Hukvaldy. On Saturday evening, the amphitheatre will come alive with world-famous hits performed by the Police Symphony Orchestra and Thom Artway; on Sunday, the festival weekend will close with an open-air performance of the cantata Carmina Burana.

“We wanted to shape the festival’s closing days as a true culmination of the entire year. We will bring top orchestras and outstanding soloists to Ostrava’s Vesmír, while Hukvaldy will become a vibrant festival centre for several days. It is there that Janáček’s legacy meets the landscape and atmosphere that are so essential to the festival. I believe that the open-air concerts in the Hukvaldy amphitheatre will offer one of the strongest experiences of this year’s edition,” said festival director Jan Žemla.

The Ostrava finale will offer the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra and a nearly sold-out concert by the Katowice orchestra

On Monday, 22 June at 7 p.m., the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra will perform at Vesmír under the baton of conductor Elias Grandy. The programme will bring together two major figures of Czech music: Antonín Dvořák and Leoš Janáček. Bass Jan Martiník will take on the solo part in Dvořák’s Biblical Songs, and the evening will be completed by a suite from Janáček’s opera The Cunning Little Vixen.

One of the biggest highlights of the festival’s final week will be Thursday’s concert by the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice, taking place on 25 June at 7 p.m. at Vesmír. Under the baton of conductor Marin Alsop, pianist Lukáš Vondráček, one of today’s most prominent Czech performers, will appear as soloist. The evening will centre on Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor in his interpretation, complemented by Copland’s Quiet City and a suite from Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. The concert is already nearly sold out.

A festival finale under the open sky

The main festival weekend will take place on 27 and 28 June in Hukvaldy, which will become one of the region’s liveliest musical locations during the festival’s closing days.

Saturday evening in the Hukvaldy amphitheatre will belong to the Police Symphony Orchestra and singer Thom Artway. Known for its genre-crossing approach, the orchestra will combine symphonic sound with film music, pop and contemporary hits. The programme will include Hans Zimmer’s music from Gladiator, the energetic Pump It! by Black Eyed Peas, Chandelier by Sia, Where Is My Husband! by RAYE, as well as Thom Artway’s songs in a symphonic guise.

Sunday’s programme at Hukvaldy Court will present young performers in the concert Tones of Masters. This musical journey from Bach to the present day will also include a new composition inspired by The Cunning Little Vixen. The involvement of Hukvaldy Court is one of this year’s novelties. The historic complex in the centre of the village has undergone a sensitive renovation, and the festival is presenting it for the first time as a distinct cultural venue.

The entire Hukvaldy weekend will culminate on Sunday, 28 June in the amphitheatre with an open-air performance of Carl Orff’s cantata Carmina Burana. One of the most powerful compositions of the 20th century will be performed by the Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra with soloists and choirs under the baton of conductor Kaspar Zehnder. Monumental music, large-scale forces and the atmosphere of the Hukvaldy amphitheatre promise one of the strongest experiences of the festival finale.

The festival will close with a chamber epilogue

The festival will close on Thursday, 3 July with the chamber Festival Epilogue at Hukvaldy Court. Soprano Alžběta Poláčková and pianist Martin Levický will perform a programme featuring works by Leoš Janáček, Vítězslava Kaprálová and Bohuslav Martinů. The chamber evening will symbolically conclude this year’s festival in a place that has newly become part of it. Before the concert, visitors can take part in a guided tour of the complex with the architects behind its renovation.