Choirmasters
List of this year's choirmasters in alphabetical order.
Keith Acheson is an Irish composer and conductor based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. After obtaining a BMus (Hons) in 1996 he was awarded a PhD in Composition from the Ulster University in 2002.
Along with many pieces for choir, he has had work performed by the likes of the Ulster Orchestra, Gemini Ensemble, HuuJ Ensemble, Arco String Quartet, sopranos Megan Mooney and Anna Gregg and guitarist Brian Keenan.In recent years he has conducted three world premières of his own works, one of which closed the 2023 Belfast International Arts Festival.
He is currently the Musical Director of the Fermanagh Choral Society, the Lindsay Chorale, the Sing for Life and Crescendo Community Choirs and the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust and Citi Belfast staff choirs. Recent highlights with these choirs have ranged from conducting the Irish première of Kim Andre Arnesen’s ‘Requiem for Solace’ with the Fermanagh Choral Society in 2024, as well as the Fauré and Goodall requiems this year, and conducting the Sing for Life Choir in a performance alongside the award-winning and Grammy-nominated group, Celtic Woman.
MgA. Patrik Buchta studied choir conducting at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno (2017–2023). He is also expanding his education in organ playing at the Brno Conservatory (2020 – present). At the Cyril and Methodius Gymnasium and the Secondary Vocational School of Pedagogy in Brno, he works in the Cantate girls' choir (2017 – present) and at the Institute of Musicology at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, in the mixed choir Ensemble versus (2023 – present), where he focuses on works of contemporary sacred music. He has also collaborated with other choirs: Vach's Choir of Moravian Teachers (2018–2024), the Šlapanice Cathedral Choir (2014–2024), the Czech Choirmaster's Choir, Vox iuvenalis, Choirchestra, Bohemiachor, Schola Brněnské mládeže, and the JAMU Mixed Choir. He has participated in several choirmaster courses led by our and foreign lecturers (Andrea Brown, Václav Luks, Jaroslav Brych, Miriam Němcová, Josef Surovík, etc.). With the Cantate choirs and the Vach Choir of Moravian Teachers, he has successfully participated in several international competitions (e.g. the European Youth Festival in Neerpelt, Belgium, Song Festival in Olomouc, Slovakia Cantat, etc.). In addition to his choirmaster activities, he works as a liturgical organist in the parish of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Šlapanice and in the Minorite Church of St. John in Brno.
She started her professional career in the opera choir of the F.X Šalda Theater in Liberec, where she also performed her first small solo roles. Intensive study of singing led her to the National Theater ensemble in Prague, which brought her further professional experience. Since 1997 she also studied singing in Australia and subsequently in the USA.
Studying music at Oakland University and the University of Michigan has allowed her to study with the world's most important musicians and perform in a variety of opera and musical performances. She graduated from conducting under the leadership of Dr. Mike Mitchell and singing with Dr. Edith Diggory.
During her years in the United States, Lucie has also worked as a vocal soloist, private singing instructor and music school manager in Michigan. In 2006 she returned to the Czech Republic. Since 2010 she has started to cooperate with various ensembles as a voice coach and lecturer.
In early 2011, Lucie founded her own project, the Prague mixed choir Lucky Voice Band. Since its inception, it has grown substantially and has won several awards in various competitions.
In 2012-13 she took over the leadership of the Ignis Church Choir in Prague and from 2015 also the chamber choir Myšmaš.
At present, Lucie is mainly involved in the Musica Orbis Prague Festival, cooperates with various American singing ensembles and gives private singing lessons.
Silvie Langrová (Pálková) (*1974) has been the leader of the Liberec Severáček since 1997. As a child, she received excellent musical and vocal training as a member and later a soloist of the children's choir Jitro. With this ensemble, she performed hundreds of concerts in Europe and the USA. After studying at the gymnasium, she studied opera singing at the Conservatory in Pardubice in the class of Svatava Šubrtová. She also gained valuable experience as a member of the vocal-instrumental ensemble ReBelcanto under the direction of composer Miroslav Raichl. She graduated from the University of Hradec Králové, majoring in music education and choir conducting.
In addition to her choir conducting work, Silvie Langrová also organizes seminars for choir conductors and sits on juries of domestic and foreign choir competitions (including Llangollen – Great Britain, Cantonigros – Spain, Prague, Nový Jičín, etc.). For her work as a choirmaster, she received the František Lýsek Award in 2016. She is currently studying in the doctoral program at the University of Hradec Králové.
Jan Staněk (1952, Praha),
I have fallen for singing very long ago.
Originally informal meetings with friends, wine and guitar gradually gave birth to my first ensemble Kvintus (1981). Later I set up (already intentionally) Bohemiachor (1993),Happy Hours (1991) in Switzerland, Ayangena (1993) in Italy, Spektrum (2003) in Prague, and Hlahol (2010) in Austria as the last one. And this festival in Liberec also happens to be my child a bit.
In the beginning I did not realize what I was starting. I was a singing physicist and guitar player. I certainly did not expect to leave physics because of singing, nor to study choirmaster specialization and make my hobby a beautiful profession. Nor to tour Europe and lead choir workshops.
The wave of my enthusiasm about spirituals has been replaced by a folk song period (I loved especially gypsy folk songs), later I enjoyed 20th century music and recently I have been fascinated mostly by the choir sound itself. By the mystery of joining voices and achieving sound unity! I have been fascinated by overtone singing ever since I have first come across it years ago. Since then I have been trying it in my choirs. Especially with Spektrum we have been discovering the connection of overtone singing with the above mentioned mystery of choir sound recently. It is a great adventure.
Conductor, violoncellist, choirmaster, and composer Marek Štryncl (born 1974 in Jablonec nad Nisou) held the position of concert soloist in the North Bohemian Philharmonic already while a student at the conservatory in Teplice. He graduated from the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (AMU) in 2002 in the field of conducting, he studied cello at the Dresdner Akademie für alte Musik, and participated in many courses in authentic performance practice in Chinon, Mainz, Basel, Valtice, and elsewhere.
As a conductor and choirmaster he cooperated with famous chamber and symphonic orchestras, choirs, ensembles, and soloists, such as Magdaléna Kožená, Phillipe Jaroussky, The New Israeli Vocal Ensemble, Boni Pueri, the Orlando Consort, the Prague Chamber Choir, Les Musiciens du Paradis, and the Prague Philharmonic. His repertoire includes works from the early baroque to the Romantic period, as well as contemporary compositions.
As a result of his interest in authentic performance, Štryncl set up the Musica Florea ensemble in 1992. With Musica Florea he revives the work of forgotten composers, especially from the Czech baroque and classical periods. He prepares the ensemble’s regular concert series in Prague and in other regions of the Czech Republic, and has initiated the unique theatre project of mobile baroque stage called Florea Theatrum. He plays the cello both as a soloist and in chamber ensebmles, and also occasionally composes. He has appeared at prestigious festivals, such as the Prague Spring, Rezonanzen in Vienna, the Festival van Vlaanderen in Brugge, the Tage alter Musik in Sopron, the Tage alter und neuer Musik in Regensburg, Strings of Autumn, and Concentus Moraviae. He has made dozens of compact disc recordings, many of which have received top awards: Diapason in 1994, Zlatá Harmonie in 1997, and a Cannes Classical Award in 2003. He does not avoid even alternative projects - e.g. cooperation with the singer Iva Bittová (Vladimír Godár, Mater, EMC, 2007), or the project of romantic symphonic music played on period instruments (works by Antonín Dvořák, Arta Records, 2009).
At present he is teaching conducting, choir conducting, church music conducting, and baroque cello at Charles University and at specialized courses and workshops (e.g, the International School of Ancient Music at Valtice, Bohemia Cantat in Liberec, Convivium, Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, Janáček’s Academy of Performing Arts in Brno, etc.).
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