The Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra launched its artistic activities after two years of preparations in 2018. The ensemble was founded at the impetus of the former chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Jiří Bělohlávek, who viewed the creating of such a project as a necessity for the regular “hygiene” of orchestral players. The ensemble is not staffed with permanent members. The players rotate in various chamber groups consisting exclusively of members of the Czech Philharmonic based on the needs for the repertoire being performed, which ranges from music of the Baroque era to the works of contemporary composers. At its first performance, a special Christmas Concert in December 2018 with Baroque repertoire, the ensemble collaborated with a renowned early music specialists, the conductor Reinhard Goebel. Among the soloists with whom the ensemble has appeared so far are soprano Simona Šaturová, tenor Jaroslav Březina, harpsichordist Barbara Maria Willi, and vioilnists Jan Mráček and Jiří Vodička. The artistic supervisor of the project is the Czech Philharmonic concertmaster Josef Špaček.

The violinist Josef Špaček is one of the most prominent performers of his generation. He began his violin studies at the Prague Conservatoire, and at age 18 he was admitted to the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. From 2009 he continued his studies at the Juilliard School in New York in the studio of Itzhak Perlman. Since 2011 he has held the post of concertmaster of the Czech Philharmonic. He has appeared as a soloist in many important concert halls of Europe, the USA, Japan, and New Zealand, and he has collaborated with a number of illustrious conductors (Christoph Eschenbach, Manfred Honeck, Jiří Bělohlávek). He has appeared as a soloist with top orchestras around the world, including the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Konzerthausorchester in Berlin, and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra. He has won a number of international awards, including the title of laureate at the famed Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels in 2012. He has also made a highly esteemed recording of works for violin and orchestra by Dvořák, Janáček, and Suk on the Supraphon label. The violin he plays is the “LeBrun, Bouthillard” Guarneri del Gesù (1732).

Tomáš Jamník is one of the most successful Czech performers of the younger generation. He began devoting himself systematically to playing cello at the age of five, and after graduating from the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague under the guidance of Prof. Josef Chuchro, he furthered his studies in Leipzig and Berlin. At the age of twenty-one, he won the 2006 Prague Spring International Competition, where he also was awarded several other special prizes. In 2010 he won an audition earning him a place in the renowned Karajan Academy in Berlin. In that context, he performed as a member of the Berlin Philharmonic and in various chamber music ensembles with members of that orchestra. Since 2011 he has been collaborating with a number of top artists including Simon Rattle, Reinhard Goebel, and Leif Ove Andsnes. Together with the violinist Jan Fišer and the pianist Ivo Kahánek, he is a founding member of the Dvořák Trio. For the Supraphon label, he has recorded the complete works of Antonín Dvořák for cello and orchestra, including the virtually unknown Cello Concerto in A Major in a special arrangement based on an orchestration by Jarmil Burghauser.

The pianist Lukáš Vondráček, who turns 34 this year, is one of the most successful and distinctive Czech performers in recent times on an international scale. He is followed by his reputation of as a prodigy: he began playing piano at age two, and a year later he gave his first public performance. At age eleven he issued his first CD, and two years after that he gave his first concert tour of the USA. At thirteen he began his university studies, and at fifteen he made his debut with the Czech Philharmonic under the baton of Vladimir Ashkenazy. A highpoint of his artistic career so far was his triumph at the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels in 2016, where he became the first Czech winner in history. He has appeared in solo recitals at a number of famed concert halls including Carnegie Hall v New York, the Elbephilharmonie in Hamburg, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. His appearances in the Czech Republic include this past January at the Municipal House in Prague with the Piano Concerto in F Minor by Frédéric Chopin. He is a long-time resident of Boston.