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For the PCO, May 2009 was one of the very busy months with many different events. The orchestra visited Germany twice, played in Mikołów, Poland and in Ostrava within the Janáček May (Janáčkův Máj) International Music Festival, participated in the Prague Spring competition as an accompanying orchestra and still managed to record Benda’s violin concertos.

We especially treasure the concert cooperation with the distinguished violinist David Garrett, who despite his age has become a great musical star and is very popular in Germany. Garrett’s style, fashionably original but wholly perfect both musically and technically, has only confirmed his singularity and along with the PCO totally sold out the concert halls four times in Braunschweig, Viersen, Mannheim and Aachen. For the orchestra, also the repeated cooperation with the excellent Czech violinist Roman Patočka, with whom we recorded two violin concertos by František Benda for Czech Radio, was very important and interesting.

The end of 2008 turned out to be very rewarding for the Prague Chamber Orchestra. After a longer break caused by some financial problems of the organising agency, the orchestra established new cooperation with the most prestigious music agency in Japan, Kajimoto Concert Management, which resulted in a very successful tour of Japan – already our ninth. In terms of its importance, it was one of the best evaluated tours of the Land of the Rising Sun, in which also the fact that Japanese soloists of great fame and renown – the sopranos Hiroko Koda and Tomotaka Okamoto – performed with the orchestra had its share. In particular Okamoto’s vocal ‘gift’ makes it possible for him to sing exacting coloratura soprano arias, as the only one in Japan. This ability along with his extravagant and spectacular appearance make Okamota the number one star. At the organiser’s request, the orchestra concluded the tour with two concerts with a purely Christmas repertoire in Tokio, embellished by a young Czech rising star, the soprano Lucie Mlynářová. Japan Tour 2008 revealed a new dimension in the cooperation and thus set very high standards for further expected negotiations.

Tomotaka Okamoto on the Japan 2008 tour
[ Cooperation with Mr. Tomotaka Okamoto on the Japan tour. ]


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