The Gallery of Music — Autumn 2021

Pieces by international and national composers will be performed by famous musicians who have established themselves on the national and international art scenes. The main purpose of the concert series is to support high-quality concert art that can be developed in an architecturally and acoustically unique concert space – the Concert Hall of the County House featuring a piano from Steinway & Sons.

The 16th annual Gallery of Music will present first-class musical performers and ensembles. We will hear pieces of classical music from the 16th century all the way to the latest musical compositions of 2020. The series will be accompanied by piano recitals by Alena Hučková in cooperation with the violinist Martin Ruman. The 16th series will be freshened up by instruments like the accordion, played by Milan Osadský and the historical instruments group Ensemble Thesaurus Musicum that will feature the cembalo or lute accompanied by a three part harmony. The Black Angels Songs composition by Miroslav Tóth will conclude the series, featuring the theme of our unresolved post-war period.

Alena Hučková 

She has been playing piano since she was five. During her studies, she has participated at various national and international piano competitions, either as a solo player or a part of a chamber ensemble. As a solo player, she has performed with the Slovak Philharmonic, the Brno Philharmonic, the Janáček Opera Orchestra, and the Orchestra of the Bratislava Conservatory. She has worked at the Elementary Art School of Jozef Kresánek in Bratislava where she taught piano, worked as an accompanist to the choir, string and wind instruments. For two seasons, she worked as an accompanist to the Ballet of the Slovak National Theatre and she has remained a guest member of the Orchestra of the Slovak National Theatre. At the moment, she works as an accompanist to the Department of String Instruments at the Academy of Performing Arts. She is a popular chamber player and accompanist. Together with the solo violinist of the Slovak Philharmonic Martin Ruman, they form a stable chamber duo that performs both in Slovakia and abroad. In September 2019, they issued their debut CD of viola and piano play composed by the British composer Rebecca Clarke.

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Martin Ruman 

Ruman is a Slovak violist who currently works as a solo violist of the Slovak Philharmonic and tutor at the Bratislava Conservatory. He was born in Prievidza where he gained the basics of music education. He joined a children’s folk ensemble called Malý Vtáčnik when he was little which helped form his relationship to Slovak folklore. After graduating from the Piaristic Secondary Grammar School in Prievidza, he began his studies at the Bratislava Conservatory, attending a class taught by Kornel Klatt. In this timeframe, he also received his first award at the Competition of Slovak Conservatories and the Talents for Europe competition in Dolný Kubín. Later he continued his studies at the Prague Conservatory while attending a class taught by Karel Doležal. It was here where he also received his first award at the Competition of Czech Conservatories. Martin Ruman has attended performance lessons taught by renowned artists like Gilad Karni, Atar Arad, Hariolf Schlichtig and others. In addition to his role of a professor at the Bratislava Conservatory, he has been lecturing at the Slovak Youth Orchestra since 2017.

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Ensemble Thesaurus Musicum 

The Ensemble Thesaurus Musicum group was established in 2015. They mostly perform chamber vocal and instrumental music of European origin from the 16th – 18th centuries. Their repertoire features pieces by John Dowland, Claudio Monteverdi, Girolamo Frescobaldi and others. They focus their activities musicologically and try to revive music that would have been played in the territory of today’s Slovakia between the 16th – 18th centuries. The ensemble has performed at various significant venues and festivals, such as the Orava Castle, the Mirbach Palace in Bratislava, the Musica Testudinis lute festival in Prešov, the Singe Seele Gott zum Preise event in Vienna, the Night of Music in Levice or the Spiš festival of Musica Nobilis. The ensemble players are musicians that focus on historically inspired performances delivered by historically accurate replicas of various instruments.

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Andrej Gál 

He studied cello at the State Conservatory in Bratislava and at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. He also took masterclasses taught by R. Wallfisch and J. Waltz. From 1997 to 2002, he led cello groups in various international orchestras – Young Artists Festival Bayreuth, Internationale Junge Orchesterakademie and the Idyllwild Summer Arts Festival in the US. Since 2001, he has been a member of the Slovak Chamber Orchestra where he holds the post of solo cellist. He is a member of the Ostravská banda ensemble, Veni Ensemble and leads the Ostrava New Orchestra’s cello group. He also plays the Baroque cello and occasionally performs with the Musica Aeterna ensemble. As a soloist, he has collaborated with the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava, Ostravská banda, Slovak State Philharmonic Košice, the Symphony Orchestra SRo, Slovak Chamber Orchestra, Veni Ensemble and Quasars Ensemble.

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Milan Osadský

He started to play the accordion under the leadership of his grandfather when he was a child. Later he studied at the Conservatory in Žilina. He continued his studies at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava under Rajmund Kákoni and Boris Lenko, under whose guidance he finished his doctoral studies in 2010. He regularly performs at concerts and festivals both at home and abroad as either a solo player or a member of ensembles specialising in contemporary music – Veni, Ostravská banda, Melos Ethos Ensemble and others. He has collaborated with the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Berg Chamber Orchestra and renowned conductors specialising in contemporary music – Peter Rundel, Zsolt Nagy, Daniel Gazon. He is a two-time laureate of the Competition of Slovak Conservatories and recipient of many other awards (International accordion contest Roveredo, International Festival of Accordion Music in Przemyśl, award of the laureate of the Ján Cikker Festival in Banská Bystrica and others). His repertoire consists mostly of music from the second half of the 20th century and contemporary music.

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Miro Tóth

He is a composer, sound designer and saxophonist. He pursued his doctoral studies at HAMU in Prague, under Michal Rataj, while he gained his masters degree in composing at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, under the leadership of Vladimír Godár. He had previously studied under Jevgenij Iršai up until his third year. His early efforts in composing were supervised by Ilja Zeljenka. He also graduated from Comenius University in Bratislava in musical science. He has received three Radio Head Awards for experimental music for his piece “Kyberpunkomša” [Cyberpunksermon] (2018) and albums „S‘ihmon“ and „+“ with the Shibuya Motors band (2020). He has created music for several documentaries and feature films, such as Servants (directed by Ivan Ostrochovský). He has received two international awards for the movie in Belgium and France. He has also cooperated on the movie FREM (directed by Viera Čakányová). Both of them premiered at Berlinale and he also worked on the movie OUT (directed by György Kristóf) which premiered in Cannes. He has authored several musical theatre productions and operas, Nulanus, Man in a Spacesuit, The Mystery of a Bar, A Miracle Massage Bar for Public Office Clerks and three video operas – A Tooth for a Tooth, An Eye for an Eye, The Bar and an unfinished opera titled Outpark. His piece, The Quartet of Tentacles Reaching Out, was performed by the Kronos Quartet at the Pohoda festival in 2018 and the Black Angels Songs quartet premiered the Dystopic Requiem Quartet in 2021. He has either founded or is a member of several bands, Drť [Brash], Shibuya Motors, Predskokan Otrok [The Slave Opener] or Srnka [Doe]. As a saxophonist, he focuses on freely improvised music and musical overlaps into graphic art and open pieces. As a player, he has performed at festivals like the CTM Festival Berlin, Alternativa, NEXT Festival, Újbuda Jazz Festival, UH Fest, Ostrava Days of Contemporary Music, Audio Art festival, Prague Spring and he has also done solo performances of Jan Trojan’s pieces with the Prague Chamber Philharmonic.

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Dystopic Requiem Quartet 

The Dystopic Requiem Quartet consists of first-class Czech violinists David Danel and Anna Veverková from the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, but also the North Bohemian Philharmonic Orchestra Teplice or the Prague Modern ensemble and leading Slovak performers of classical contemporary music, Júlia Urdová on viola and Andrej Gál on cello. The composer Miroslav Tóth will be on electronic instruments.