Classical Movements' Prague Summer Nights: Young Artists Music Festival to Take Place Live and In Person

Classical Movements' Prague Summer Nights: Young Artists Music Festival has decided, like several other prestigious summer festivals, to plan to be live and in-person this summer. To make this more possible, the festival will be moved two weeks later and will now take place July 5 to August 2, 2021.

Debuting in 2015, Classical Movements' Prague Summer Nights: Young Artists Music Festival (PSN) offers fully-staged operas directed by Gayle Shay and Patrick Diamond, as well as orchestral performances, chamber music concerts, opera scenes, and cabaret programs at historic venues in two of Czech Republic's most beautiful cities: Prague and Tábor.

After live performances have been shuttered for a year, the 6th PSN promises to be a historic festival, as nearly 100 singers, instrumentalists, conductors, stage directors, rehearsal pianists and arts administrators from more than 20 countries live, work and travel among these two culturally rich cities.

To participate in Prague Summer Nights, every participant will be expected to adhere to the most up-to-date COVID protocols, including Prague Summer Nights protocols, travel protocols determined by the United States government, and the local and national guidelines within the Czech Republic. While Classical Movements is committed to the festival being live and in-person in the Czech Republic, they are still making plans for an alternative version of the festival to be held in the United States, should it not be possible to travel to Prague.

In 2021, PSN is proud to return to the Estates Theater in Prague, one of Europe's oldest theatres and the only still standing where Mozart himself conducted. Fully-staged performances of Mozart's Don Giovanni and Le nozze di Figaro with orchestra will be presented on the stage of the Estates Theatre - where Mozart conducted the first performances of Don Giovanni in 1787 - with professional sets and historic costumes from the National Theater.

The Prague Summer Nights Festival Orchestra will play all opera performances - and their own orchestral program at the Rudolfinum, home of the Czech National Philharmonic, as well as two other concerts in Tábor and the surrounding cities of Prague. Participants will have the opportunity to perform in the PSN chamber music program where they will receive coachings with Prague Summer Nights faculty and visiting guest artists. Chamber music performances will be held in Tábor and the famed Rudolfinum of Prague.

For singers, additional concerts at the festival include an opera scenes program which will feature scenes from important Czech operas such as Dvořák's Rusalka and Smetana's Bartered Bride, as well as favorite operas by Bizet, Donizetti and Puccini. Singers will work directly with coaches and faculty from the Czech National Theater and PSN on diction, language, acting and character development. A cabaret performance of music from the American Songbook and Broadway, including the music of Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, Stephen Sondheim, Irving Berlin, Kurt Weill and Cole Porter will take place in a famous Prague jazz club.

"Like other summer festivals from Aspen to Verbier, we have decided to return to be to be live and in-person this summer. We are most grateful to our extraordinary faculty, who have shown so much flexibility and commitment to our program.

We understand how difficult it has been to go a year without live performances and we want our participants to have the opportunity to learn and perform in person. We know that no festival offers performances in more beautiful and historic venues than Prague Summer Nights. This year it will be even more wonderful to perform live in such exquisite, historic venues." - Neeta Helms, President and CEO, Prague Summer Nights Festival, Founder and President, Classical Movements

Joining the PSN faculty for the first time this July is David Kim, principal violinist of The Philadelphia Orchestra. Mr. Kim will serve as guest artist and clinician during the Prague Summer Nights Festival.

Returning for his sixth season of PSN, Berliner Philharmoniker clarinetist Walter Seyfarth will perform as part of the festival under PSN Artistic Director John Nardolillo. Director of Orchestras at the University of Kentucky, maestro Nardolillo will conduct two productions of Don Giovanni-both directed by Gayle Shay, Director of Vanderbilt Opera Theatre at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee-as well as three additional concerts featuring the PSN Festival Orchestra. Returning for his third season of PSN, conductor Timothy Long will conduct two productions of Le nozze di Figaro-both directed by Patrick Diamond, opera faculty at both Yale School of Music and Manhattan School of Music.

Back for his fifth iteration of PSN, Ladislav Kozderka, Czech Philharmonic Principal Trumpet, is ready to lead instrumental masterclasses and chamber coachings once again. Joining him this season is Lauren Nelson, violist of Semiosis Quartet, as the first ever head of our Chamber Music program.

Click here for a full list of faculty for their Prague Summer Nights: Young Artists Music Festival.

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