Jitka Čechová / piano

Jitka Čechová completed her piano studies at the Prague Conservatory (Prof. Novotný) and continued at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (Prof. Toperczer). Her individual musical gifts were then developed to their full during postgraduate studies under Eugen Indjic in Paris and Vitali Berzon in Freiburg. She acquired further experience during her research studies at master classes given by Rudolf Kehrer in Weimar, and Eugen Indjic and Lazar Berman in Piešťany.

Jitka Čechová has been the laureate of numerous international competitions – International Chopin Competition in Marianske Lazne, International Smetana Competition in Hradec Kralove, International Hummel Piano Competition in Bratislava, International Chamber Music Competition in Detmold.

She has been the subject of critical acclaim as a soloist in most of European countries as well as overseas (South Africa, North and South America and Japan), where she cooperates with prominent orchestras (such as Prague Symphony Orchestra, Czech National Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra SWR, South German Philharmonic Orchestra Konstanz, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, Prague Philharmonia, Munich Symphony Orchestra, Symphonic Radio Orchestra Montevideo, Brazilian Symphony Orchestra, National Theatre Symphony Orchestra of Brazil, and Symphonic Orchestra Durban) and gives both solo and chamber performances. She is regularly invited to prestigious international stages and festivals (including Prague Spring, Graz, Paris, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Baden-Baden, Bodensee Festival, Český Krumlov, Moravian Autumn, Edinburgh, Bamberg, Janáček May, Ticino Musica).

Chamber music is an indispensable component of Jitka Čechová's musical identity. She brings a full emotional commitment to bear to her role as pianist in the Smetana Trio, supported by the brilliant technical basis of her solo metier. Within the Smetana Trio partnership she also plays chamber duets with her partners in the Trio (Markéta Janoušková – violin, Jan Páleníček – cello) and performs solo pieces as part of the Trio's chamber music repertoire.

The focus of Jitka Čechová’s reper­toire is on works by the Czech composers – Smetana, Dvořák, Janáček, and Martinů. She has given two concerts consisting of works by Smetana at the world-famous Edinburgh Festival in Scotland. Zdeněk Lukáš dedicated his Third Piano Concerto to her, which she premiered with spectacular success during her concert tour of Germany with the Symphony Orchestra Südwestfunk (cond. Petr Altrichter).

Jitka Čechová has made more than 25 recordings for the labels Supraphon, Intercord, BMG, Lotos, and Cube. In 2014 – in the year of Bedřich Smetana´s jubilee – she finished her recording of the complete piano works by Bedřich Smetana for Supraphon (8 CDs), a project that has collected awards by major music critics and magazines both at home and abroad – Diapason, Répertoire, International Record Review, and Harmonie. Recently she made a recording of all three piano concertos and concertino written by Josef Páleníček in the cooperation with the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra (cond. Ronald Zollman and Stanislav Vavrinek). Presently she is cooperating on the large recording project of the complete 550 sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti for the Czech Radio.

She has given master classes in Prague, London, the Northern College of Music in Manchester, Brasilia and Campos do Jordao in Brazil, the Colburn School University in Los Angeles, Eau Claire in Wisconsin, and in Luxemburg.

www.jitkacechova.com