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Italian-style New Year's Eve with Collegium 1704
The Collegium 1704 Orchestra, which is dedicated to the interpretation of Baroque music, will perform music by the Italian Baroque masters with the vocal ensemble Collegium Vocale 1704 at their New Year's Eve concert in Rudolfinum in Prague.
Harpsichordist and conductor Václav Luks founded both ensembles 14 years ago for the Bach – Prague – 2005 project. Interpreting Baroque music is the ensemble’s main focus, both in the Czech Republic and from Prague to Dresden.
Italian music on New Year's Eve
In order to make New Year's Eve even more special to audiences in Prague, Collegium 1704 will perform in Dvořák Hall in Rudolfinum, one of the most beautiful concert halls in Prague. The concert will start on Tuesday, the 31st of December, at 7:30pm, and it will be an hour and a half long without an interval.
The orchestra has organised their popular New Year's Eve concerts for the past seven years, but this is the first time that the concert will take place in the evening instead of the afternoon. Nevertheless, concert-goers do not have to worry about missing New Year’s Eve parties, as the concert will finish at around 9pm.
The concert programme will consist of pieces by Italian Baroque composers, as well as music celebrating the birth of Jesus, which is appropriate for the Christmas season.
Introduction videos
In order to achieve their aim to educate their audiences, the ensemble came up with an interesting concept this year. Not unlike popular dramaturgical introductions in theatres, each Collegium 1704 concert in Rudolfinum, including the New Year's Eve one, will be preceded by a ten-minute video introduction where the conductor Václav Luks will introduce important compositions and composers. These video files are available to the public on the group’s YouTube channel. The video introduction for the New Year's Eve concert ‘Festa italiana’ will be available on the YouTube from the 20th of December 2019.
Future plans
Collegium 1704 is currently working on the release of their new CD, ‘Missa 1724’ by Jan Dismas Zelenka.
The group aims to release the recording in early 2020 and they are planning crowd-funding campaigns on the internet platforms Indiegogo and Hithit. You will have the opportunity to support the production of this gem of Czech Baroque music.
For further information, please visit: https://www.collegium1704.com/en/. The website is available in Czech, English and German.