Festival Prologue
Pilgrimage Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary

Künstler

• Michaela Moc Káčerková – organ
  A Czech organist and music manager, she is dedicated to her solo concert career, performing regularly at concerts and festivals in the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Poland, Italy, and France, as well as returning to the USA and Japan. In her home country, she also collaborates with many soloists, orchestras, and baroque ensembles, from the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra and the National Theatre Orchestra in Prague to the Karlovy Vary Symphony Orchestra and the Pardubice Chamber Philharmonic, to the ensembles Capella Regia Praha, Barocco sempre giovane, and Ensemble 18+. Her repertoire includes music from all stylistic periods, from the Renaissance to contemporary works. A cornerstone of her repertoire is Czech organ music, which she always includes in her programmes, especially when performing abroad. She has become one of the most prominent figures on the Czech music scene. She studied organ at the Prague Conservatory with Jan Hora, at the Academy of Performing Arts with Jaroslav Tůma, and also at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy in Leipzig, where her teachers were organist Stefan Engels and harpsichordist Tobias Schade. During her studies, she participated in numerous masterclasses, including those led by Harald Vogel, Martin Sander, Lorenzo Ghielmi, Olivier Latry, and Ludger Lohmann. She is currently engaged in an extensive recording project, "Historical Organs of the Karlovy Vary Region." The CD series is being released by ARTA Records. She is the founder and artistic director of the J. C. F. Fischer International Music Festival and the Karlovy Vary Organ Evenings. Since June 2021, she has been the director of the Karlovy Vary Symphony Orchestra.
• Terezie Švarcová – soprano
  She studied classical singing at the Prague Conservatory in the class of J. Krásová and composition with E. Douša. In 2022, she completed her doctoral studies in composition at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague under the guidance of J. Filas and M. Rataj. Between 2003 and 2009, she was a soloist at the Moravian Theatre in Olomouc, where she performed numerous roles (Gilda, Manon, Juliet, Susanna, Terinka, Constance, etc.). During the same period, she also gave concerts in Germany and Austria and performed with leading Czech orchestras. Since 2009, she has systematically focused on chamber music, dedicating herself primarily to the interpretation of vocal compositions of the 20th and 21st centuries. In addition to her own works, she brings to the concert stage the works of many contemporary Czech composers and revives lesser-known international repertoire. In 2011, she founded the Morgenstern Ensemble trio. Alongside this, she is also involved in the interpretation of Baroque and Classical music. As a composer, she focuses particularly on works for the human voice (songs, melodramas). In her choice of texts, she has long explored the themes of war, love, and death, which she considers her deepest source of inspiration. Since 2014, she has been teaching at the Prague Conservatory. She is a member of the Umělecká Beseda.
• Tomáš Strašil – cello
  He is consistently devoted to both solo and chamber music performance. With the turn of the new millennium, he left his position as concertmaster of the SKO (Suk Chamber Orchestra) to fully dedicate himself to solo, chamber, and pedagogical activities. Since 2000, he has been passing on his experience to young cellists as a professor of cello at the Prague Conservatory, and since 2012, he has been teaching at the Academy of Performing Arts (HAMU) in Prague. He is also keenly interested in early music and collaborates with harpsichordist Michaela Káčerková on concert programmes of both Baroque and more modern music. In 2002, he formed the small chamber orchestra Camerata Bohemica, where he serves as the permanent soloist and artistic director. In 2003, he began a collaboration with pianist Barbora Sejáková and violinist Daniela Oerterová in the Trio Bergerettes. During this time, together with Vítězslav Černoch, Dana Truplová, and Vilém Kijonka, he was at the inception of the Kubelík Quartet. He is a frequent guest in recording studios and a lecturer at both domestic and international courses. The cellist alternates between instruments signed "Pietro Zanetto di Brescia 1686" and "Karel Josef Dvořák, Prague 1929". For Baroque music, he uses an anonymous 18th-century Czech instrument, and for modern music, he performs on new cellos by master luthier Radek Herout (2003 and 2007).

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