Bruce Dickey, Hana Blažíková & Concerto Palatino
Biography Bruce Dickey, Hana Blažíková & Concerto Palatino
Hana Blažiková
She was born in Prague. As a child she sung in a children choir Radost Praha and she played violin. Later she turned to solo singing, graduating in 2002 from the Prague Conservatory in the class of Jiří Kotouč. Later she undertook further study with Poppy Holden, Peter Kooij, Monika Mauch and Howard Crook.
Today Hana has achieved high acclaim as a leading specialist in the interpretation of baroque, rennaisance and medieval music, performing with ensembles and orchestras around the world, including the Collegium Vocale Gent, Bach Collegium Japan, Sette Voci, the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, L’Arpeggiata, Gli Angeli Geneve, La Fenice, Nederlandse Bachvereniging, Tafelmusik, Collegium 1704, Collegium Marianum, Musica Florea, L’Armonia Sonora among others. She regulartly cooperates with the world-class cornetto player Bruce Dickey, with whom she recorded the CD "Breathtaking" and together they continue performing this program around the world.
Hana"s busy schedule has taken her to many important festivals, including the Edinburgh International festival, Salzburger Festspiele, the Utrecht Early Music Festival, Tage Alter Musik Regensburg, Resonanzen in Vienna, the Festival de Sablé, the Festival de la Chaise-Dieu, Arts Festival Hong-Kong, Chopin i jego Europa, the Bachfest Leipzig, Concentus Moraviae, Summer Festivities of Early Music, and the Festival de Saintes.
During 2017 she appeared in major venues all over Europe and in the USA in the trilogy of Monteverdi"s operas (L"Orfeo, Il ritorno d:"Ulisse in patria, L"incoronazione di Poppea) under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner. In this majestic project she introduced herself in the roles of La Musica, Euridice, Minerva, Fortuna and Poppea.
In 2010 and 2013 she took part in a highly praised tour with St. Matthew´s Passion under the direction of Philippe Herreweghe and in 2011 she made her debut in Carnegie Hall with Masaaki Suzuki´s Bach Collegium Japan. She also sang a soprano part of St. John´s Passion with Boston Symphony Orchestra during the Easter period of 2011. In November 2014 she participated in the stage production “Orfeo chaman” with L’Arpeggiata in Bogota.
Hana appears on more than thirty CDs, including the well-known series of Bach´s cantatas with Bach Collegium Japan.
She also plays gothic harp and romanesque harp and presents concerts in which she accompanies herself on this instrument. In addition she is a member of the Tiburtina Ensemble, which specializes in Gregorian chant and early medieval polyphony.
Concerto Palatino
The names Bruce Dickey and Charles Toet are practically synonymous with the modern revival of the cornetto and the Baroque trombone and are largely responsible for the enormous advances that have been made in the last 20 years in playing standards on these instruments. In a collaboration of some 25 years, they have together trained a whole generation of cornetto and trombone players, many of whom have become regular members of Concerto Palatino.
While the core group is comprised of two cornetti and three trombones, this formation is frequently augmented by the addition of brass players, strings, or singers as necessary. Inevitably, much of their repertoire is sacred, as these instruments were a fixture of musical chapels in both the Catholic south and the Protestant north, from the time of the first flowering of Flemish polyphony in the early 16th century through their twilight years at the time of J.S. Bach, one of the last composers to employ them in a serious way.
Concerto Palatino frequently collaborates with other leading ensembles, in particular Cantus Cölln (Konrad Junghänel), Collegium Vocale Ghent (Philippe Herreweghe), La Dolcezza (Veronika Skuplik), the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra (Ton Koopman), and the Bach Collegium Japan (Masaki Suzuki).
Concerto Palatino places a high priority on unearthing neglected gems of music history and giving them a place in the concert hall and record catalogs alongside the works of established masters. Thus, in addition to highly acclaimed recordings of Schütz, Gabrieli, and Monteverdi, they have made premiere recordings of the Marian Vespers of Francesco Cavalli, the Missa Maria Concertata of Christoph Strauss, and Palestrina’s Missa sine nomine preserved in a manuscript of J. S. Bach. Their numerous recordings for EMI Reflexe, Accent, and harmonia mundi France have received high acclaim. In particular, a major series of recordings together with Cantus Cölln (Vespers of Monteverdi and Rosenmüller, Schütz’ Psalmen Davidsand Symphoniae sacrae, the Selva Morale e spirituale of Monteverdi) has won numerous prestigious awards.
