Talent Stage

Naďa Strnadová is in the first year of Professor Petr Nouzovský’s violoncello course at the Prague Conservatory. She transferred to the conservatory from the Grammar and Music School of the City of Prague, where she studied under the leadership of Professors Mirko and Martina Škampa. She regularly participates in violoncello competitions. Her successes include: the first prize at the Jan Vychytil International Violoncello Competition (2015, 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022 and 2023), the first prize at the Gustav Mahler International Violoncello Competition in Jihlava (2019) and the second prize at the Heran violoncello competition in v Ústí nad Orlicí (2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024). She has had the opportunity to play as a soloist at a number of concerts: at the Zlatá Pecka music festival in cooperation with Dagmar Pecková and Klára Gibišová, at a concert of the graduates of the Visegrad Music Youth Academy (accompanied by Miriam Rodriguez Brüllové), at concerts for the best Czech participants at the 26^th and 28^th annual Heran violoncello competitions, at concerts for the winners of the 16^th and 17^th years of the violoncello competition (2022 and 2023) and at the concert of the Heran violoncello competition laureates held under the auspices of the Smetana’s Litomyšl festival.

Valentýna Ibriqi, born in 2012, began playing the piano at the age of eight under the guidance of Ellina Belčikova. Just a year later, she won first prize in the competition Young Pianists Play Steinway & Sons, and the following year she became the competition’s overall winner. Numerous national and international prizes soon followed, including first prizes at the International Smetana Piano Competition, the Peter Toperczer International Piano Competition in Košice, the Broumov Keyboard International Piano Competition, the Franz Liszt International Piano Competition, the Amadeus International Piano Competition, the Golden Piano Talents International Competition, and the Virtuosi per Musica di Pianoforte International Competition, among many others. In recent years, Valentýna has enhanced her education through participation in the MenArt mentoring programme, organised by the Magdalena Kožená Endowment Fund. She has also attended the International Summer Piano Courses at the Prague Conservatoire, studying with Milan Langer.

Jaromír Češek was born in 2007 in Kroměříž. From an early age, he showed a great interest in music and began studying piano and trumpet at the Primary Art School in Bystřice pod Hostýnem at the age of six. He twice won the national round of the ZUŠ (Primary Art School) competition in trumpet, earning the title of absolute winner. He received the same honour in the Junior category of the Brno International Brass Competition. At the ages of twelve and fourteen, he appeared as a soloist with the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic in Zlín, performing trumpet concertos by Alexander Arutiunian and Joseph Haydn. Since 2023, he has been studying trumpet at the P. J. Vejvanovský Conservatoire in Kroměříž. In his first year, he competed in the oldest age category at the Brno International Brass Competition, winning first prize. He was also named absolute winner of the national conservatoire competition Pardubické dechy. In March 2025, he advanced to the second round of the international wind instrument competition in Varaždin, Croatia, as one of six selected participants. He regularly takes part in trumpet masterclasses.

Levente Bubreg was born into an Austrian-Hungarian musical family in 2008. He started playing the bassoon at the age of eight. He has been studying under Daniel Muleri at the Tyrol State Conservatory and Dag Jensen at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Munich since 2018. He debuted as a soloist with the StringSZ orchestra at the age of eleven. He has been awarded the Rotary Music Promotion Award. He received the Ignaz Pleyel Prize at the ISA International Summer Academy. He was the absolute winner and also received two special prizes at the 12^th year of the international Premio Crescendo Competition in Italy in 2023. He has also received the special Tyrol Prize for Instrumental Classical Music. In the summer of last year, he participated in a renowned festival in Verbier, Switzerland as a bassoonist in the VFJO Junior Orchestra and the Camerata Prima Vienna orchestra, which presents a selection of the most talented young musicians and is sponsored by the Wiener Philharmoniker. The acme of his activities this year involves a performance on stage at the Salzburg Festival–summer 2025.