2026 Festival Year

The Dvořák Collection, one of the Festival’s most distinctive program series, is a long-term, focused dialogue with the legacy of Antonín Dvořák. Through this series, the Dvořák Prague Festival systematically and meticulously explores the composer’s oeuvre in all its breadth, placing emphasis on quality and continuity and on performers who bring his music to life vividly and compellingly.

In the 2026 season, this exclusive series turns its attention primarily to Dvořák’s songs, in which his musical language touches human emotion with particular immediacy. Song cycles and chamber music performances create space for quiet reflection, focused listening and a personal experience with the music, enabling audiences to encounter Dvořák not as a monumental figure of music history, but as a deeply human composer. The Dvořák Collection thus offers a unique opportunity to immerse oneself in the work of the composer whose name the Festival bears, and to rediscover his music in its most sensitive and straightforward form.

The Chamber Music Series offers a space of maximum concentration, dialogue and musical intimacy. It is one of the program pillars of the Dvořák Prague Festival and has long enjoyed exceptional prestige among both performers and audiences. In the 2026 season, it presents carefully curated programmes performed by leading soloists and chamber ensembles, often in exclusive line-ups and unusual interpretative combinations.

Whether these concerts take place in intimate venues or large halls, their character consistently revolves around direct contact with the music, close attention to detail and a shared experience. The Chamber Music Series enables encounters between strong artistic personalities, mutual listening, and musical moments whose intensity often ranks among the deepest experiences of the entire Festival.

The World Orchestras series is one of the hallmarks of the Dvořák Prague Festival’s prestige. Over the past 18 years, it has welcomed a plethora of leading ensembles that represent the very pinnacle of the global orchestral elite. Yet beyond these orchestras’ renown on the international musical scene, what really matters is the exceptional musical experience they give audiences through their performances.

Each orchestra whose musicians perform at the highest artistic standard has its own distinctive character – a unique expression and tonal colour that set it apart. And often, the musicians’ shared artistic commitment and the conductor’s distinctive interpretative vision combine to create concerts whose power and impact even surpass performances by more famous ensembles. Such moments remind us just how elusive any “objective” assessment of something as subjective as an artistic performance can be.

The 2026 Dvořák Prague Festival programme, featuring orchestras alongside outstanding conductors and soloists, is a testament to the union of supreme artistic quality and broad international acclaim.

The Czech Philharmonic is the natural heart of the Festival and one of its most important symbols. The Dvořák Prague Festival 2026 is once again honoured to collaborate with the Czech Philharmonic, an orchestra of exceptional standing that embodies the Czech musical tradition while also being a confident partner of the world’s leading performers.

Czech Philharmonic concerts are key pillars of the Festival, invariably creating moments in which history engages with the present. The programming of this series is built around outstanding conductors and soloists, emblematic repertoire, and the orchestra’s ability to move with natural mastery between Czech and international compositions. The Czech Philharmonic appears not merely as an ensemble-in-residence of the Festival, but as a living symbol of the continuity, quality and musical identity in which the Dvořák Prague Festival is firmly rooted.

In the world of performance, a recital holds a truly special place. Imagine a concert hall where the stage is reserved for you alone – and you step onto it, alone (or perhaps with one partner), to share your feelings in a quiet dialogue with hundreds or even thousands of listeners. With people who wish to communicate with you through something as intangible as atmosphere, mood and inner response.

Anyone who takes to the stage with such intent deserves immense admiration and respect. In rehearsal, they face empty seats; in a concert, each seat is filled by a person with their own inner world. At that moment, the performer stands before a beautiful task – to guide everyone’s thoughts toward the message left to us by the great composers, while adding their own personal imprint to it.

They do not merely convey music; they converse about it – wordlessly, yet with profound eloquence. And they stand in that dialogue alone. Or, in happier cases, they share it with one other person.

The For the Future series is one of the Festival’s most vibrant and dynamic strands. It opens space for a new generation of exceptionally talented musicians and serves as a reminder that no tradition can exist without the courage to look ahead. In this series, the Dvořák Prague Festival deliberately supports young performers and composers, enabling them to take part in a prestigious festival environment alongside renowned orchestras and conductors.

The For the Future series includes competition concerts, talent recitals, and projects developed in collaboration with leading institutions. For audiences, it is a unique opportunity to witness artistic growth and to discover key figures who may shape the future of classical music. From this perspective, For the Future is not a supplement to the Festival programme, but an essential investment in the musical world of tomorrow.

The Soirée at the Bořislavka Centre series opens the Festival to new spaces, new audiences and new ways of encountering music. Early evening concerts in the modern setting of Artium by KKCG, at the Bořislavka Centre, offer a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere in which the highest artistic standards blend seamlessly with an informal framework.

The series is conceived as a vibrant platform for young performers and contemporary programming with the courage to seek new approaches to interpretation and communication with audiences. Soirée at the Bořislavka Centre is a symbol of the Festival’s openness and its ability to reach new listeners and to respond to changes in the cultural landscape – while respecting quality, but leaving unnecessary barriers or conventions behind.

The Festival’s artist-in-residence, mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená, recipient of the 2025 Antonín Dvořák Prize, is an exceptional artist. Her authority, international reputation and wide interpretative range lend the residency programme remarkable weight and are naturally reflected in the various Festival concert formats.

The residency is not merely an honorary title, but a genuine dramaturgical axis. Audiences have the opportunity to follow the artist through the full spectrum of her work – as a soloist, a chamber music partner and a mentor to the emerging generation. This multi-layered presence allows for a deeper understanding of her artistic thinking and gives the Festival a distinctly human dimension. The involvement of such an outstanding figure brings international lustre to the Dvořák Prague Festival and underscores its ambition to stand as one of the most important musical events of the European concert season.