Chief Conductor
ROBERT KRUŽÍK
born in 1990 and a laureate of the Jiří Bělohlávek Prize, is one of the youngest generation of Czech conductors, and is now in his sixth year as Permanent Conductor of the Brno National Theatre’s Janáček Opera Company. In addition to three seasons as conductor with the Moravian-Silesian National Theatre in Ostrava, he has been Permanent Guest Conductor of the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra since the 2018-2019 season and takes up the post of Chief Conductor of the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic Orchestra in Zlín from the 2021-2022 season.
He works with a whole range of symphony orchestras including the Brno Philharmonic, the PKF – Prague Philharmonia, the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Slovak Philharmonic, the State Philharmonic Orchestra in Košice, the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra in Ostrava, the Czech Student Philharmonic, the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra in Olomouc, and the South Bohemian Chamber Philharmonic. He is also invited to conduct at major festivals such as the Prague Spring, the St. Wenceslas Music Festival, the Young Prague international music festival and others.
His work at the National Theatre in Brno has included his interpretations of Rossini’s opera Le comte Ory, Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades and Eugene Onegin, and Smetana’s Libuše performed to mark the centenary of the Czechoslovak Republic, Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, and the ballet La Dame aux Camélias. His broad range of opera conducting includes works by Mozart, Smetana, Dvořák, Martinů, Janáček, Donizetti, Rossini, Tchaikovsky, Bizet, Verdi, Puccini and Prokofiev among others.
A native of Brno, he began his studies as a cellist, going on to graduate from the Brno Conservatoire. In addition to the cello (studying under Miroslav Zicha) he studied conducting under Stanislav Kummer. His conducting studies continued at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts under Leoš Svárovský, Charles Olivieri-Munroe and Lubomír Mátl, and his cello studies under Miroslav Petráš. He spent the academic year 2012/2013 on a study placement at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste in Switzerland in both his specialisms. He has been successful in a number of cello competitions at, for example, the Prague Spring, in the Bohuslav Martinů Foundation Interpretation Competition, and the Leoš Janáček International Competition in Brno. He has developed his knowledge and experience in masterclasses for cello with Jiří Bárta, Michaela Fukačová and Raphael Wallfisch, and for conducting under Norbert Baxa, Johannes Schlaefli and David Zinman.