A Child Is Born

Hana Blažíková is an exceptional figure on the Czech and international early music scene. She graduated from the Prague Conservatory, where she studied under Jiří Kotouč.
Currently, the singer specialises in the interpretation of mostly Baroque, Renaissance and Medieval repertoire and performs solo with many of the world’s leading ensembles, including Collegium Vocale Gent, Gli Angeli Genève, Bach Collegium Japan, the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Ensemble Pygmalion, Nederlandse Bachvereniging, La Cetra, La Capella Reial de Catalunya, Collegium Marianum, Tiburtina Ensemble, Collegium 1704 and Cappella Mariana.
 
Hana Blažíková appears at major international festivals, such as the Prague Spring, the Edinburgh International Festival, Salzburger Festspiele, Oude Muziek Utrecht, Tage Alter Musik Regensburg, Resonanzen (Vienna), the Summer Festivities of Early Music, Festival de la Chaise-Dieu, Chopin i jego Europa, Festival de Saintes, Bachfest Leipzig and Concentus Moraviae.
 
She has also sung works by Bach with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Bamberger Symphoniker under the baton of Herbert Blomstedt. Her collaboration with the Bach Collegium Japan took her to New York’s Carnegie Hall. Since 2015, she has worked closely with the renowned cornetto player Bruce Dickey, with whom she has toured several times in North America, Australia and Tasmania.
 
In 2017, she performed in all three of Monteverdi’s operas under the direction of Sir John Eliot Gardiner and sang in leading opera and concert houses in both Europe and the USA.
 
Hana Blažíková also plays the Gothic and Romanesque harp. She appeared on more than forty CD recordings.

Kamila comes from Ostrava (Czech Republic) and started her music studies as violinist. After high school she attended Janáček Conservatory in Ostrava and later studied singing at the Institute for Art Studies at Ostrava University under college lecturer Drahomíra Míčková.

Currently, she is a part of the Prague ensemble Collegium 1704 under artistic direction of Václav Luks. She took part at the concerts of many prestigious festivals in Europe (La Chaise-Dieu, Sablé, Pontoise, Festival Oude Muziek) and also at recordings of Collegium 1704: J. D. Zelenka: Officium defunctorum & Requiem (2011), Responsorias (2012), J. S. Bach: Mess b minor (2013) or J. D. Zelenka: Missa Divi Xaverii and Litanieae de Sancto Xaverio (2015).

Tiburtina Ensemble (Prague) leaded by B. Kabátková and Ensemble Phoenix Munich (Germany) leaded by bass and lute player J. Frederiksen are also the ensembles she cooperates with nowadays.

As a finalist of The Froville International Singing Competition (Fr) she was awarded by the “Prix du public” in September 2011.

She often devotes to the song interpretation of the classicist and early romantic period (J. V. Tomášek, J. Haydn, L. Koželuh). In 2014 she recorded the CD of songs of J. V. Tomášek with Monika Knoblochová (hammerklavier) for the Czech Radio.

Tomáš Lajtkep holds a Master’s degree in Telecommunications from the Brno University of Technology. While still a student, he started studying voice privately and took part in masterclasses by various specialists in the field of Early Music. He works regularly with ensembles focusing on the Gregorian chant as well as on Renaissance and Baroque repertoire, including Collegium Marianum (dir. Jana Semerádová), Cappella Mariana (dir. Vojtěch Semerád), Collegium Vocale 1704 (dir. Václav Luks), Schola Gregoriana Pragensis (dir. David Eben), Vox Luminis (dir. Lionel Meunier), and Collegium Vocale Gent (dir. Philippe Herreweghe).

Besides his singing career he also plays the trombone in several jazz bands and the sackbut (tenor and bass) with the Capella Ornamentata ensemble, having participated in masterclasses of Franck Poitrineau, Bernhard Rainer, and Adam Woolf.

Czech bass singer Jaromír Nosek graduated from the Faculty of Education of the Charles University in Prague, the Prague Conservatory (Prof. Jiří Kotouč) and from the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (Prof. Roman Janál and Prof. Katarína Bachmannová). He has received scholarships for educational stays at Dartington International Summer School, at Accademia Chigiana in Siena and at Conservatorio Santa Cecilia in Rome.

He has been collaborating with renowned Czech and foreign orchestras and vocal ensembles, such as Collegium 1704, Cappella Mariana, Prague Symphony Orchestra FOK, Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Concerto Palatino, Gli Angeli Geneve, La Venexiana, Wrocław Baroque Ensemble, Doulce Mémoire and Lautten Compagney. His soloist career includes the cooperation with conductors such as Václav Luks, José Cura, Stefano Montanari, Rudolf Lutz, or Christophe Rousset. Jaromír has performed at a number of international festivals, including the Prague Spring, Salzburger Festspiele, Festival d’Ambronay, Settimana Musicale Senese, Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht, Bach Festival Montréal, Festival del Centro Histórico de la Ciudad de México, etc.

As an opera singer, he has performed both home and abroad; he had the lead role in Antonio Vivaldi’s serenata La Senna Festeggiante, and the opera audience might have seen him in a number of other roles: Claudio Monteverdi’s Caronte (L’Orfeo) and Seneca (L’incoronazione di Poppea), Ortensio in Antonio Caldara’s L’Amor non ha legge, or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro), Il Commendatore (Don Giovanni) and Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte).

He has contributed to the recording of over 40 CD’s, a number of which has been nominated or has received prestigious international prizes, such as Choc du Monde de la Musique or ICMA (International classical music awards).

In 2020 Jaromír founded the ANMOEN chamber music ensemble that specializes in the interpretation and sensitive interconnection between early baroque and contemporary music.

Since it was founded in 1997, the Prague ensemble Collegium Marianum has focused on presenting the music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially by composers who were born or active in central Europe. One of the few professional ensembles specializing in this field in the Czech Republic, Collegium Marianum not only gives musical performances, but regularly also stages scenic projects.
 
The ensemble works under the artistic leadership of the traverso player Jana Semerádová who also regularly appears as a soloist with some of the eminent European orchestras. Her active research together with her study of Baroque gesture, declamation and dance, has enabled Semerádová to broaden the profile of the Collegium Marianum ensemble and present multi-genre projects featuring Baroque dance and theater. Her unique, thematic programming has resulted in a number of modern-day premieres of historical music presented each year. The ensemble has collaborated with renowned European conductors, soloists, directors, and choreographers such as Andrew Parrott, Hana Blažíková, Damien Guillon, Peter Kooij, Sergio Azzolini, François Fernandez, Simona Houda-Šaturová, Benjamin Lazar, Jean-Denis Monory, and Gudrun Skamletz.
 
Collegium Marianum has received critical acclaim both at home and abroad. The ensemble has appeared extensively on the Czech Radio and TV as well as on the radio abroad. It regularly performs at music festivals and on prestigious stages both in the Czech Republic and elsewhere in Europe, including Tage Alter Musik Regensburg, Bachfest Leipzig, Potsdam Festspiele, Mitte Europa, Festival de Sablé, Bolzano Festival, Palau Música Barcelona, Pražské jaro, or Concentus Moraviae.
 
In 2008 the ensemble started a successful collaboration with the Supraphon label. Within the “Music from Eighteenth-Century Prague” series it has launched eight recordings with music by both well-known and lesser-known composers including J.D. Zelenka, F. Jiránek, J.J.I. Brentner and J.A. Sehling.

One of the most prominent personalities of the international early music scene, flautist Jana Semerádová is a world-class soloist, conductor, musicologist and creator of unique artistic projects. A graduate of the Prague Conservatory, the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague (Theory and Practice of Early Music), and the Koninklijk Conservatorium in the Hague, the Netherlands, she is also a laureate of the Magdeburg and Munich international competitions.
 
Jana Semerádová is the artistic director of Collegium Marianum and programming director of the concert cycle Baroque Soirées and the international music festival Summer Festivities of Early Music. She undertakes intensive archival research both at home and abroad and is engaged in ongoing study of Baroque gesture, declamation and dance. Many of her unique programmes are built around the interconnection of music and drama. Under her direction, Collegium Marianum stages several contemporary premieres of musical works each year. Jana Semerádová has a number of CDs to her name; her recordings with Collegium Marianum are featured as part of the successful series “Music from Eighteenth-Century Prague” on the Supraphon label, for which she has also recorded her two signature CDs “Solo for the King” and “Chaconne for the Princess”.
 
Jana Semerádová has performed at leading European concert venues and festivals (such as Bachfest Leipzig, Oude Muziek Utrecht, Musikfestspiele Potsdam Sanssouci, Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik, Händel-Festspiele in Halle, Festival de Sablé, Prague Spring, Tage Alter Musik Regensburg, Wratislavia Cantans, Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, the Konzerthaus in Vienna and Berlin, and Palau de la Música Catalana), collaborated as a soloist with various artists, including Magdalena Kožená, Sergio Azzolini, Alfredo Bernardini, and Enrico Onofri, and regularly performs with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Il Suonar Parlante, Wrocławska Orkiestra Barokowa, Orkiestra Historyczna and Ars Antiqua Austria.
 
In 2015 she received her habilitation degree as an associate professor of flute from the Faculty of Music and Dance at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. Since 2024, she has been teaching at the Kryszstof Penderiecki Academy of Music in Kraków.
 
In 2019 she was awarded the prize of the Prague Group of the Society for Arts and Sciences. A year later, Jana Semerádová and Erich Traxler were nominated for the Anděl Awards (category Classics) for their CD “Chaconne for the Princess”. In December 2024, Jana Semerádová was awarded the prestigious French Order of Arts and Letters (Ordre des Arts et des Lettres), at the grade of Knight (Chevalier).

Lenka Torgersen studied violin at the Pilsen Conservatory and subsequently at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague under Václav Snítil. After graduating in 1998 she focused intensively on Baroque violin and honed her skills from 1999 to 2003 at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis under the tutelage of Chiara Banchini.

From 1999 to 2012 she was concertmaster of Collegium 1704. Currently concertmaster of Collegium Marianum, she also works regularly with other Czech and international ensembles including La Cetra Barockorchester Basel, Ensemble 415, Freitagsakademie Bern, conSequenza, Ensemble Inégal, Les Traversées Baroques, Orchester der J. S. Bach-Stiftung St. Gallen and Ensemble Tourbillon. As a chamber musician and soloist she performs at major music festivals (such as the Prague Spring, Festival d’Ambronay, Festival de Sablé, Festival La Chaise-Dieu, MA Festival Brugge, Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht, Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik, Festival del Camino de Santiago and Festival Santander), and also collaborates with various leading figures in early music including Chiara Banchini, Gustav Leonhardt, René Jacobs, Andrea Marcon, Jordi Savall, Andrew Parrott and Attilio Cremonesi.

She has recorded for renowned international labels such as Harmonia Mundi, Accent, Zig-Zag Territoires and Pan Classics. In 2010 as a soloist with Collegium 1704 she recorded the instrumental works of Antonín Reichenauer, for which she received the Diapason d’Or award. In 2013 she recorded on the Supraphon label a solo CD entitled “Il Violino Boemo”, a modern-day premiere reviving the sonatas of the 18th century Czech violin virtuosi František Benda, Josef Antonín Gurecký and František Jiránek. This recording also garnered enthusiastic reviews from both Czech and foreign critics.