On 13th of February this year  I have performed for the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Music Society, one of the oldest and most venerable music institutions founded in 1849 in Prague and currently in its 114th season. With professor Hlavá? on clarinet and Leonid Gorochov on violoncello we have performed Eight Pieces by Max Bruch, Trio by Alexander von Zemlinsky and a wonderful atmospheric piece La Speranza by outstanding Czech contemporary composer Sylvie Bodorová. Concert was a great success on all fronts, and my return to perform in the future series is on the cards. Watch this space. Please visit page Upcoming Concerts to see pending engagements.

Month of May has seen me perform solo recital for Bishop Auckland Music Society in the Bishop Auckland Castle as well as solo recital for Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival.

Next season highlights include recitals for Czech Chamber Music Celebrations festival, in venues such as stunning Wallenstein Pallace of Prague, and concert for Czech Philharmonic Orchestra Chamber Music Society subscription concert series in the Mecca of Czech Music: Dvorak Concert Hall.

Details of those concerts are on the Upcoming Concerts page:

http://ladavalesova.com/wordpress/?page_id=388

On 8. 2. at 6.30pm,

10. 2 at 1.30pm and

13. 2. at 10pm

Classic FM in Prague will broadcast an interview with me in the programme “Želízka v ohni” : Irons in the Fire. Interview will include tracks from my CD Intimate Studies. Tune in if you are around and in mood.

http://classicfm.lidovky.cz/porady.asp

13 February 2011, 3pm

St. Nicholas Church, Church street, Brighton BN1 3LJ

Romance

A song recital for Valentine’s Day with Penelope Randall – Davis, soprano.

Exquisite love songs by Quilter and Rachmaninov and British folk song settings. Piano Solo pieces by Dvorak and Suk.

Tickets: £12, £10 concessions.

Tickets in advance from 01833 631838 or on the door.

http://stnicholasbrighton.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=3

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The Wigmore Hall was  full yesterday for the Anglo-Czechoslovak Trust Concert.  It was wonderful to perform in the perfect acoustic of this famous Hall and to feel the support and attention of our listeners. Here is a review by Peter Grahame Woolf on Music Pointers.

http://www.musicalpointers.co.uk/reviews/liveevents10/CzechMusic&Artists.html

You are cordially invited to come and hear me perform at the Wigmore Hall on 27th of June at 7.30 pm.

I will play pieces by Josef Suk and piano cycle In the Mist by Leos Janacek.

Wigmore Hall event website page:

http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/whats-on/productions/anglo-czechoslovak-trust-25657

Event is organised by Anglo-Czechoslovak Trust:

http://www.actrust.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

Tickets: £13    £11    £9    £8

How to Book:

In person 7 days a week; 10am – 8.30pm. Days without an evening concert 10am – 5pm. No advanced booking in the half hour prior to a concert.

Telephone bookings : 020 7935 2141. 7 days a week; 10am – 7pm. Days without an evening concert; 10am – 5pm. There is a £1.50 administration fee for all telephone bookings which includes the return of your tickets by first class post.

Online bookings : www.wigmore-hall.org.uk. 7 days a week; 24 hours a day. There is a 50p administration fee for online bookings, which includes the return of your tickets by first class post.

Facilities for Disabled People : Please contact House Management on 020 7258 8210 for full details

Review of my recital at the Iffley Music Festival last week by Giles Woodforde:

‘Aged four: Lada is seen kicking a girl behind her at the barre in ballet class. Reason: too busy watching the pianist accompanying the class. Aged six: first piano is bought. Lada and piano become friends for life.” That’s just a snippet from the delightfully idiosyncratic programme biography supplied by Czech pianist Lada Valesová, who appeared at this year’s Iffley Music Festival. Playing at times forcefully, at times lyrically, melody seemed to positively bubble out of her as she made her way through a recital devoted to Czech music. As composer followed composer, you could not but marvel at the amount of creative talent produced by this small country.

You may know Dvorák’s Slavonic Dances backwards, but how about his Dumka and Furiant, op 12? The elegiac sections of the Dumka produced the evening’s first examples of that wistful, melancholic mood which infuses much Czech music, while you certainly wouldn’t have wanted to try dancing the Furiant after drinking too much Czech beer. More dance music followed, in Smetana’s Scherzo-Polka, op 5, and then the angry waves in his On the Sea Shore, positively shook the rafters of Iffley Church Hall. Dvorák’s pupil Josef Suk wound up the first half, with his suite Spring bringing the sound of appropriately riffling leaves in The Breeze, and premonitions of a darker future in the final movement, Longing.

After the interval, Valesová produced some memorable surprises. Janácek’s In the Mists was followed by a newly discovered Martinu miniature: his take on Spring, full of fresh air and skipping lambs. Finally, a real rarity: a descriptive suite by Pavel Haas, composed in 1935. Beginning with a Preludium (“Bach gone mad,” suggested Valesová, in one of her many humorous and informative introductions), and ending with a Postludium (“New York in the rush hour”), it was fascinating to hear how Haas took the Czech idiom forward from his tutor, Janácek, in music that particularly suited Valesová’s bright tone.

http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/leisure/5013141.Lada_Valesova__Iffley_Festival/

” The interpretation was among the most subtle I have heard.”

Lada Valesova, Darlington Arts Centre, 9.1.2010.

CZECH pianist Lada Valesova offered music of her homeland and traced the connection between Smetana, Dvorak and other composers in her recital for Darlington Piano Society.

She began with a thoughtful performance of Dvorak’s Dumka and Furiant, op24, Dvorak having played viola under Smetana’s direction in the orchestra of the Prague National Theatre. Then came the latter’s charming Concert Etude (On the Sea Shore), a delightfully skittish Scherzo-Polka.

The connections continued with Spring, by Dvorak’s sonin- law and student, Josef Suk, in which various emotions, notably the final Longing, were particularly well expressed.

Another connection with Dvorak was Janacek who, while not officially his student, used to send him his early compositions. Among them was the highly-evocative In the Mists, given a performance of great emotional strength, expressing longing, sadness and regret, anger even, for things lost through the passage of time. The interpretation was among the most subtle I have heard.

Film in Miniature (1923) by Bohuslav Martinu, an occasional student of Suk, threw us into the 1920s with dance idioms catching the essence of the age and his recently rediscovered and equally light and sprightly Spring (1921).

Valesova’s final piece was by Janacek’s former student, Pavel Haas, whose Suite op 13 dated from the same decade and spoke of a vast musical talent, terminated all too soon in the concentration camps of Terezin and Auschwitz.

Opening with a preludium best described as “Bach with attitude”, and ending with a high-speed toccata-like Postludium, she maintained total control of pace and content, being almost impressionist in the second movement, dancing 1920s’ style in the third and offering an element of the ecumenical in the pastorale.

The evening held the attention at all times with its unusually well considered theme, rewarded with a charming improvisation on Czech country folk themes as encore.

Dave Robson

At a busy pre-Christmass time on 18th of December at 10.30 am Czech Radio has featured music by Janacek from my CD in the programme My favourite Pianists moderated by professor Jiri Hlavac.

I was deeply humbled to find myself in the company of Garrick Ohlsson and Ivan Moravec.

http://www2.rozhlas.cz/program/pdaread/2009-12-16?st=3

Still to come: Thursday 28th of January at 9 am Radio NZ Concert will play piano cycle Spring by Josef Suk from the CD. Here is the link:

http://www.radionz.co.nz/concert/schedules/20100128

Wishing all music-lovers, supporters, friends and visitors to this web site all the very best in 2010! 

Lada.