Jubilate Deo – the prologue to the Lednice-Valtice Music Festival prologue concert at the Liechtenstein Garden Palace in Vienna – features Collegium Marianum performing sacred and secular treasures of the French and Czech Baroque. Zelenka’s festive works will be performed alongside Mondonville’s dramatic motet, while Delalande and Leclair will evoke the instrumental splendour of the French court.
Collegium Marianum
Since its foundation in 1997, the Prague ensemble has been dedicated to performing music from the 17th and 18th centuries, with a focus on Czech and Central European composers. As one of the few professional ensembles of its kind in the Czech Republic, its repertoire includes not only concert works, but also regular stage projects. The ensemble operates under the artistic direction of flutist Jana Semerádová, whose research activities, as well as her studies of Baroque gestures, declamation, and dance, have enabled the ensemble to expand its artistic profile from a purely musical focus to include Baroque dance and theatre. Other activities include projects with the puppet theatre ensemble Buchty a loutky (puppet theatre Calisto or Händel’s pastoral opera Acis and Galatea). The ensemble works closely with leading European conductors, soloists, directors and choreographers while enjoying recognition from foreign and Czech critics, regularly records for radio stations, and performs at international festivals and prestigious venues. In 2008, the ensemble began a successful collaboration with the Supraphon music publishing company, which has already released eight of its recordings as part of the “Music of 18th-Century Prague” series. In 2010, Collegium Marianum received an award for its contribution to the quality and dissemination of Czech music from the Czech section of the UNESCO International Music Council. Since 2001, Collegium Marianum has been organizing the Baroque Evenings concert series and is the resident ensemble of the international music festival Letní slavnosti staré hudby (Summer Festivities of Early Music).
Jana Semerádová
Flutist, conductor, and musicologist Jana Semerádová is one of the most prominent figures on the international early music scene. She graduated from the Prague Conservatory, the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague (Theory and Performance Practice of Early Music) and the Koninklijk Conservatorium in The Hague. Also, she is a laureate of international competitions in Magdeburg and Munich. She leads the Collegium Marianum ensemble and organizes the Baroque Evenings concert series and the international music festival Letní slavnosti staré hudby (Summer Festivities of Early Music). She is intensively involved in research activities in Czech and foreign archives and in the study of Baroque gestures, declamation and dance. Her original programming is often based on the interconnection of musical and dramatic art. She has recorded two CDs for the Supraphon label (Solo for the King and Chaconne for the Princess), performs at major European venues and festivals, regularly gives concerts with international ensembles, and has collaborated as a soloist with i.e. Magdalena Kožená, Sergio Azzolini, Alfredo Bernardini or Enrico Onofrio. In 2015, she obtained her associate professorship in flute at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, and since 2024 she has been teaching at Akademia Muzyczna im. Krzysztofa Pendereckiego w Krakowie. In 2019, she received an award from the Society for Science and the Arts, and a year later, she was nominated alongside Erich Traxler for an Anděl Award for the CD Chaconne for the Princess. In December 2024, she was awarded the prestigious French Order of Arts and Letters (Ordre des Arts et des Lettres) with the rank of Knight.