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 many European
countries as well as overseas (South Africa, South America and Japan), where she
cooperates with prominent orchestras (such as Prague Symphony Orchestra FOK,
Symphony Orchestra SWR, South German Philharmonic Orchestra Konstanz, Bamberg
Symphony Orchestra, Prague Chamber Philharmonia, Munich Symphony Orchestra,
Symphonic Radio Orchestra Montevideo, 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 (Jiří Vodička – 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).
In 2014 – in the year of Bedrich 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 Palenicek in the cooperation with the
Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra (cond. Ronald Zollman and Stanislav Vavrinek).
Presently she is cooperating on the large project of the complete sonatas
recordning 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.