All aboard the Dvořák ship! 67th edition of festival takes place on water
The Dvořák music festival is a popular annual event, but this year’s 67th edition brings an exciting new twist to the tradition – it takes place on a boat on the Vltava River. Visitors can listen to the music of Dvořák while blissfully floating along on the Florentina ship. I spoke with the festival manager, Lucie Strnadova about what to expect.
The festival is in its 67th edition, what is unique about it this year?
“This year the special event is a boat cruise along the route where Dvořák sailed before he left for the US. We arranged a seven-day boat trip, every day there is a different place, a different artist and different concerts. So it’s seven days of lovely music, art, and lovely weather on a ship.”
For those of our listeners who may not know who Antonín Dvořák is, maybe you can give us a little bit of background information on him?
“Dvořák belongs to one of our most famous composers, we are very proud to have him because through him we have a very large bond with the United States where he served as director of the Conservatory in New York. This year, we were honoured to have the US Ambassador and his wife visit our first concert on the 12th of August on board the ship, where we presented Dvořák’s most famous opera, Rusalka.”
Why is this event important for spotlighting Czech talent in the arts?
“There are so many beautiful artists in Czechia, and we would like to somehow present the journey of Dvořák to the US through music. It’s also quite an important historical and artistic spotlight for Czech people, and we would like to show them classical music in a different way. And that’s why we chose to make this special boat trip and present concerts on the boat. We didn’t want to just do a concert in the concert hall, but rather engage people all around Czechia with the boat tour.”
Concerts are running until the 18th of August, schedule information can be found here.
