The town council of Prague decided on 26th March 2013 to appoint Daniel Sobotka as the new director of the Prague Symphony Orchestra, a position he will take up on the 1st April 2013.

Should you wish, you could be witness to a very special tale – the love story of the Queen of Granada and the Lucitanian King and Prince of Syracuse. The Prague Symphony Orchestra FOK would like to invite youto the Smetana Hall, Municipal House on the 20^th and 21^st February 2013, to see the concert performance of the heroic coronation opera Argene, regina di Granata by Anton Reicha. This will be a special occasion as the concert will mark the first-ever directly elected President of the Czech Republic.  

The Prague Symphony Orchestra FOK starts the New Year with a tour to Japan, where they were exactly three years ago. Between the 2^nd – 20^th January 2013, under the batton of the Polish conductor Łukasz Borowicz, they will perform altogether ten concerts in various places in the land of the rising sun, including the prestigious Suntory Hall in Tokyo and in Fukushima, the city stricken by the nuclear disaster.  Czech music bySmetana and Dvořák will dominate the programme alongside other symphonic pieces from the world repertory, with solo performances by the renowned Japanese interpreters Mariko Senju, Mayu Kishima and Ayako Uehara and concertmasters of the FOK orchestra: the violinist Rita Čepurčenko and cellist Miloš Jahoda.

On November 19th 2012, PhDr. Ilja Šmíd officially resigned from his post as Director of the Prague Symphony Orchestra FOK with effect from the 1st January 2013. This was his own decision, which he made in order to allow the members of the orchestra and the executive officials in charge at the Prague City Hall to realise their own visions and ideas with regard to the running of the orchestra, ideas which were not in line with those of Dr. Šmíd. He was Director of the orchestra from 2006 and during his leadership the FOK underwent many changes, which did not simply occur through natural developments nor exterior intervention, but were purposefully and systematically planned and realised.  In parallel with the end of Dr. Šmíd’s mandate as Director of the FOK orchestra, he is hereby publishing his own assessment of his six year running of the organisation, 2006-2012.  

Do you already have our new season brochure? You can find there all orchestral concerts of the Prague Symphony Orchestra in the Smetana Hall, chamber concerts in the Church of St. Simon and St. Jude and piano recitals held in Dvořák Hall in Rudolfinum of the next season. The brochure can be purchased for free at our Box Office or here in electronic version. You can also write at pso@fok.cz and we will gladly send it to you by mail.