Principal Guest Conductor

Leoš Svárovský

Principal guest conductor from season 2016-17

Leoš Svárovský studied flute and conducting at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts  (AMU) under the renowned Professor Václav Neumann. His career began at the Prague National Theatre as Assistant to Zdeněk Košler. In 1991 Herbert von Karajan invited him to work with Georg Solti, Claudio Abbado and the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Sommerfestspiele.

Since the year 2000, Leoš Svárovský's teaching work at the Prague AMU department of conducting has focused on the study of oratory- and cantata-conducting technique. In 2012 he received an Associate Professorship at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts (JAMU) in Brno.

From early on in his career he has been chief conductor at a number of top-ranking Czech and Slovak orchestras, including the Prague Chamber Opera (1985-1987), the Janáček Philharmonic in Ostrava (1991-1993), the Brno State Philharmonic (1991-1995), the Žilina Sinfonietta (1995-2000) with whom he has been chief guest conductor since 2010, the Pardubice Chamber Philharmonia (1997-2009), the Prague National Theatre Ballet Orchestra (2001-2002), and the Prague State Opera (2003-2005) where he was also Artistic Director for performances of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Prokofiev's Cinderella, Dvořák's Rusalka, and premieres of Janáček's Katya Kabanova, Gounod's Faust et Marguerite, and - at the Prague National Theatre - Glazunov's ballet Raymonda.

Since spring 2014 he has been Chief Conductor of the Aichi Central Symphony Orchestra Nagoya, and he is also a regular guest conductor at the Slovak Philharmonia and an honorary member of the Brno Philharmonic. 

Mr Svárovský is regularly invited to conduct at many major music festivals both at home and abroad. He is a regular guest at the prestigious Rheingau Musik Festival, where he performed Massenet's Marie-Magdeleine with the Brno Philharmonic and the Brno-based Czech Philharmonic Choir, as well as the Requiems by Dvořák and Verdi, Franz Liszt's monumental oratorio Christus, and Hector Berlioz's Romeo et Juliette.

He has guested at many other international music festivals too, including the Europäischen Wochen Passau, the Aspekte Salzburg, the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest, the Colorado Music Festival, the Settimane Musicali di Ascona, and the Bratislava Music Festival, to name but a few.

Recent musical seasons have also seen him conducting and collaborating with a whole range of orchestras in Bohemia and Moravia, including highly acclaimed tours with the Brno Philharmonic and the Slovak Philharmonic in Japan, the PKF Prague Philharmonia in Syria, the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra in Germany, and the Czech Philharmonic in the United States.

His collaboration with a number of orchestras abroad includes the Orchestre de Pays de la Lorraine in Metz, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Beethoven Orchester Bonn, the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, the Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, the Bach Collegium München, the Residentie Orkest den Haag, the RTL Symphony Orchestra in Luxembourg, the Bruckner Orchester in Linz, the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa, the Shanghai Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Radio Symphonie Orkest in Utrecht, the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, the Presidential Symphony Orchestra in Ankara, Moscow's Tchaikovsky Symphonic Orchestra and many more.

He has performed with soloists such as Josef Suk, Rudolf Firkušný, Václav Hudeček, Igor Ardašev, Igor Oistrakh, Stefan Vladar, David Geringas, Diana Damrau, Hakan Hardenberger, Katia Ricciarelli, Miriam Gauci, Kurt Rydl, Sergey Larin, Nicola Martinucci, Eva Randová, Dagmar Pecková, Petr Dvorský and many others throughout Europe, the United States, Canada, South America, Japan and Korea.

Leoš Svárovský's discography includes more than 24 CDs with a number of different record labels in the Czech Republic, Germany, the United States, Japan, Slovakia and France, such as Panton, Supraphon, JOD, Thoroform, WEA Records, and New Classic.

Tomáš Brauner

Principal guest conductor from season 2021-22

Tomáš Brauner, one of the most sought-after conductors of his generation, was born in Prague in 1978 and studied oboe and conducting at the Prague State Conservatoire. After graduating in conducting from the Prague Academy of Performing Arts in Prague in 2005 he undertook a study attachment at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts. Five years later he was a prizewinner at the Dimitris Mitropoulos International Conducting Competition in Athens.

Tomáš Brauner works regularly with leading symphony orchestras and opera houses such as the Prague FOK Symphony Orchestra, the PKF Prague Philharmonia, the Munich Symphony Orchestra, the Slovak Philharmonic, the Philharmonie Südwestfalen, the Moscow Radio State Orchestra, the Athens Orchestra of Colours, the Janáček Philharmonic in Ostrava, the Prague Chamber Orchestra, the Czech Chamber Philharmonic in Pardubice, the Moravian Philharmonic in Olomouc, the North Bohemian Philharmonic in Teplice, the Czech National Symphony Orchestra and others. From 2013–2018 he was Chief Conductor with the Plzeň Philharmonic, and since 2014 he has also been Principal Guest Conductor with the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra in Prague.

Tomáš Brauner began his opera conducting career at the J.K. Tyl Theatre in Plzeň where he worked on and then conducted a considerable number of operas including Ponchielli’s La Gioconda, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Tchaikovsky’s Maid of Orleans, Dvorák’s Jacobin, Puccini’s Turandot, and Francesco Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur. He made his début at the Prague State Opera in 2008 with a performance of Verdi’s Othello, followed by Massenet’s Don Quijote, Rossini’s Barber of Seville, Puccini’s La Bohème and Tosca, Verdi’s Nabucco, Mozart’s Magic Flute, Bizet’s Carmen and a concert performance of Ambroise Thomas’s Mignon.  At the Moravian-Silesian National Theatre in Ostrava he presented and conducted a new study of Verdi’s Nabucco and Ernani, also Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet, Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet, and Janáček’s Katya Kabanova. He has also conducted Janáček’s Jenůfa at the prestigious Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. Among the ballets he has conducted are Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake (in Ostrava) and Sleeping Beauty, Maurice Jarre’s Hunchback of Notre Dame (in Plzeň), and Adam’s Giselle at the Prague State Opera. 

Tomáš Brauner also receives regular invitations to perform at major international festivals such as Bad Kissingen, and the Richard Strauss Festival in Garmisch Partenkirchen where he was invited along with the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra to present the opening gala concert marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of Richard Strauss, on which occasion he conducted Strauss’s Alpine Symphony.  He has also guest-performed at the Prague Spring, the Smetana Festival in Litomyšl, the Český Krumlov International Music Festival and many others.