Easter Festival of Sacred Music 2026

In his first letter to Thessaloniki, the Apostle Paul writes that the believers there should not cease in prayer. However, his few words before that could perhaps be a compass for today’s diverse society as well: see that no one repays evil for evil, but always strive for good among yourselves and toward everyone. Always rejoice.

That constancy and joy are the theme of the 33rd Easter Festival. That is why the psalms permeate it constantly, because even out of the deepest despondency one can sing oneself into the light.

In the first week of the festival, the words of Psalm 130 will be heard twice, in the form of the great cantata by the French composer Marcel Dupré for solo, orchestra and choir, as well as in the more intimate, perhaps all the more urgent form of Arvo Pärt’s famous composition for male choir, organ and percussion. The psalm theme is interwoven into the organ recital at St Thomas’ Church with a romantic programme and the monothematic concert dedicated to Gija Kancheli’s fragile work Exile from1994.

This time, the festival’s commissioned works will bridge Holy and Easter week in the form of chamber oratorios, and the Renaissance dark hours of Good Friday will be followed in Easter week by the performance of Giovanni Antonio Rigatti’s magnificent Baroque Vespers.

While the opening concert brings previously unheard works by French composers Tomassi and Dupré to Brno, the closing concert at St James’s Church uses the theme of home, the joy of return. Pavel Zemek Novák’s Fifth Symphony, subtitled The Fountains of Mercy and Light, will be performed at St James’ Church in Brno, as well as Ludwig van Beethoven’s Missa in C. The original printed score from which this intimate work was premiered in Brno two hundred years ago is still preserved in the St. Jacob’s rectory.

one of the festival’s dramaturgs