The Filharmonie Brno celebrates its 70th anniversary at a New Year’s concert
dedicated to dance. The orchestra will be joined by former musicians
PRESS RELEASE Brno,
December 31, 2025
The Brno Philharmonic Orchestra always celebrates its imaginary birthday at its New Year’s Concert, as the first concert of the newly established Brno State Philharmonic Orchestra took place on January 1, 1956.
This year’s evening will be special, as the orchestra will celebrate its 70th anniversary. Former players will therefore appear on stage to play a selection from Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances with the current players. “The main theme of this year’s New Year’s Concert is dance as a symbol of celebration, joy, and vitality,” said Marie Kučerová, director of the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra
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The program includes six works with a dance theme. After the Slavonic Dances, the audience will hear the brilliant andexuberant Philharmonic Dances by Jan Novák, which the Brno composer wrote specifically for the young Brno State Philharmonic Orchestra in 1956. “The orchestra premiered them that same year in the Brno Stadium hall and took them to heart. Since then, it has performed them many times successfully at home and abroad, and four years ago,it opened the Moravian Autumn festival with them,” said Vítězslav Mikeš, dramaturge of the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra. He added that in 2021, the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra released it on its own label, on Jan Novák’s profile album. After the pause Argentine tango dancers will appear on stage to accompany Benjamin Yusupov’s Go Tango. The following Danzón No. 2 by Artur Márquez is one of the most popular and most frequently performed contemporary Mexican orchestral compositions, which is celebrated almost as the second Mexican national anthem. The penultimate piece of the evening, John Adams’ foxtrot The Chairman Dances, combines minimalism, jazz rhythms, and catchy melodies. It is a scene from his opera Nixon in China, in which Mao Zedong dances the foxtrot with the future Madame Mao to the sounds of a gramophone. The gala evening will conclude with Danzas from the ballet Estancia by Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera, who was Ástor Piazzolla’s teacher. The work, rich in colorful Ravelian instrumentation, sets the atmosphere of an Argentine ranch to music in four movements and culminates in a frenetic dance finale.
In its seventy years of existence, the philharmonic has only missed the New Year’s concert once, in 2021, due to measures taken during the pandemic. “Personally, I wish the philharmonic, which I have been attending since my youth, to retain its wonderful, knowledgeable, and devoted audience, and I continue with the wish for the existence of enlightened politicians who perceive even something as intangible as music as a contribution to the social and cultural cohesion and uniqueness of the city. And I wish the orchestra a constant supply of the best young musicians, led by the best chief conductor with experience, vision, international contacts, and a wise understanding of the needs of the players,” said Kučerová.
Chief conductor and artistic director Dennis Russell Davies, who has been at the helm of the orchestra since 2018, adds his congratulations. “In life, as in cards, luck cannot be planned, but when it appears, you have to recognize it immediately and take advantage of it. That’s what happened to me with the Brno Philharmonic: eight years ago, we had that famous blind date; we didn’t know each other until then, but from our first meeting, it was clear that we wanted to be together. The past seven years have been perhaps the most satisfying of my career. I congratulate all the amazing musicians on what they have achieved – not only during our time together, but also before that. I look forward to the days ahead and am honored to be a part of them,” said Davies.
The Brno State Philharmonic Orchestra was founded on January 1, 1956, by merging two ensembles: the Brno Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Brno Region Symphony Orchestra. The first ensemble began to form shortly after the founding of the Brno studio of Czechoslovak Radio in 1924 around pianist and conductor Břetislav Bakala. The second was formed during the war years at the Brno Conservatory around the personality of Zbyněk Mrkos. Both ensembles had their own subscription series and competed healthily with each other. However, both were prevented from performing large compositions by the low number of players, around sixty. The idea of a merger did not originate in either orchestra, but in the Ministry of Culture, which wanted to create a philharmonic orchestra based on the Soviet model as a major center of professional music. The artistic leadership was entrusted to Břetislav Bakala, and the positions of conductors were filled by Zbyněk Mrkos and Otakar Trhlík from the radio orchestra. The merger took place hastily, and just before Christmas, the radio symphony musicians received the news that their employment would end on December 31, 1955. And so, just a few days before New Year’s Eve, the radio symphony musicians sat down for joint rehearsals with the regional symphony musicians, who were planning to play a New Year’s concert, so the historically first concert of the new ensemble took place according to the printed programs and posters purely under the banner of the Brno Regional Symphony Orchestra.
At the ceremonial inaugural meeting on January 4, 1956, the founding charter stipulated that the new Brno State Philharmonic Orchestra would fulfill the existing functions of both defunct ensembles: performing live concerts and recording for radio. With no signs of improvisation, but all the more solemnly, the following pair of philharmonic concerts on January 18 and 19, 1956, took place. At the first, under Bakala’s baton, Smetana’s fanfares to Libuše, Janáček’s Taras Bulba and Dvořák’s New World were performed, and a day later Beethoven’s Leonora III and Ninth Symphony, also with Břetislav Bakala. The philharmonic’s subsequent programs were always played twice: on Thursday for the existing subscribers to the radio orchestra, and on Friday for the subscribers to the regional orchestra.
The new ensemble quickly gelled and demonstrated a high degree of professionalism from the outset. The large ensemble made it possible to perform major works from the symphonic repertoire with a representative string and wind section. Soon, all the musicians of the new philharmonic realized that the merger was also a great artistic opportunity: the first foreign tours came, performances at major festivals, guest appearances by world-class soloists and conductors, and important recordings.
Media contact: Kateřina Konečná, +420 775 426 040, katerina.konecna@filharmoniebrno.cz
