Events commemorating composer Bedrich Smetana in 2004
Welcome to the Arts. 2004 has been designated as the Year of Czech Music and will be marked with concerts, exhibitions, and festivals around the country. The reason - this year the Czech Republic commemorates as many as 60 anniversaries of important composers, musicians and music organisations. And some of those anniversaries fell on this week.
On Tuesday, March 2nd, the Czech music world celebrated 180 years since the birth of Bedrich Smetana, one of the best-known Czech composers and one of the founding fathers of Czech classical music. A series of events are being held to commemorate this anniversary and also the 120th anniversary of Smetana's death, on the 12th of May.
The Bedrich Smetana Museum in Prague, along with other institutions, is taking part in the events dedicated to Bedrich Smetana. The director of the Museum is Olga Mojzisova.
"On the 2nd of March this year, we opened a new exhibition. Its name is "Images of Bedrich Smetana". It presents different iconographic materials from original photographs from the time of Smetana's life to contemporary art; paintings, graphics, sculptures and so on. Because Smetana was very often presented on such materials many years, from the time of his life until the present day."
Beside this exhibition, there is a whole series of events this year commemorating Bedrich Smetana. One is a traditional contest of young pianists presenting Smetana's works. The Smetana Piano Contest was founded in 1963 and takes place every two years. This year it is hosted by the city of Plzen. Sixty young piano players from the Czech Republic and abroad have come to Plzen to compete in three age categories. A concert featuring this year's winners will be held on Sunday in the Museum of West Bohemia in Plzen.
The Smetana Piano Contest is not to be confused with another, albeit related event. Olga Mojzisova from the Bedrich Smetana Museum explains. "The Smetana Museum is also a partner of the project "Smetana Piano". It is a project of concerts at which Smetana's piano works will be presented. They are not played at concerts too often and it is a very nice and a very big part of his work. So we want to present the well-known works and also some works that are not to be heard at concerts."
Another traditional event connected to Czech national composer Bedrich Smetana will take place in his native town of Litomysl in June, under the umbrella of the Year of Czech Music project. The 46th year of the festival called "Smetana's Litomysl" will feature twenty works by Bedrich Smetana. At the same time Litomysl will host a special conference on Bedrich Smetana. And not only that. Visitors will be able to see an exhibition, originally displayed in the Smetana Museum in Prague, relating to perhaps the best-known opera by Bedrich Smetana, "The Bartered Bride".
"Last year an exhibition ended in our museum, called "The Bartered Bride - Known and Unknown" and it was very successful, so it will be presented this year in two Bohemian towns, in Jindrichuv Hradec and then in Smetana's birth town in Litomysl during the International Opera Festival and it is an exhibition which presents the popularity of Smetana's well-known opera "The Bartered Bride".
