Mahan Esfahani’s first concerto album for Hyperion is everything the listener could wish for: definitive performances of three marvelous—and unexpected—works by three of the last century’s Czech masters - Bohuslav Martinů, Hans Krása, and Viktor Kalabis. In an introduction to this new CD (release - February 2023), Mr. Esfahani writes: Of the three works on this recording—indeed, of all modern harpsichord works—Viktor Kalabis’s 1975 Koncert pro cembalo a smyčcový orchestr, Op 42, is the most personal. It certainly has an intense personal connection for me—I was, after all, the last student of the work’s dedicatee, who was herself the wife of…
Read more
2024 -- Japanese Violinist Tsukushi Sasaki wins the Viktor Kalabis and Zuzana Růžičková Prize at the Prague Spring Music Festival The Japanese violinist Tsukushi Sasaki won the 1st prize at the 75th Prague Spring International Music Competition. Tsukushi was born 2000 in Tokyo where she began to play the violin at the age of three. In addition to the aforementioned the 1st prize, she won other prizes, including the 2nd prize and the audience prize at the 87th Music Competition of Japan and the 2nd prize at the Tokyo Music Competition. Tsukushi has performed as a soloist with several orchestras,…
Read moreThe Viktor Kalabis Prize Winners ADAWITCZYK.COM –is delighted that our partnership continues with the Victor Kalabis & Zuzana Ruzickova Foundation and we’re honored to name our competition in her memory. 2024 saw the competition entering its fifth year and its popularity grows with over 50 submissions for the 2024 awards. Celebrating the life and career of one of the world’s leading harpsichordists Zuzana Ruzickova and her invaluable role in promoting pieces by modern composers on period instruments. Please visit the competition website to learn about the many winners and their music from previous years. 2020 Competition 2021 Competition …
Read more
Washingtonmusicaviva produced the Viktor Kalabis Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 29 (1968). Performed by Emma Hays Johnson, cello, and Carl Banner, piano, live at BannerArts, March 20, 2021
Read moreIn his article, Bach Was a Musician’s Companion to Tragedy, The New York Times' Michael Beckerman reviews the memoir retelling Zuzana Růžičková's life story - “Zuzana: Music Is Life”. Read the complete article here.
Read more
BBC discusses 'One Hundred Miracles: A Memoir of Music and Survival', a new book about Holocaust survivor and the world’s greatest harpsichordist, Zuzana Ruzickova. Harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani and author Wendy Holden pay tribute to her. https://kalabismusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/MusicMatters-20190420-TransgenderOperaSingersHarpsichordsAndBillyBudd.mp3DOWNLOAD Visit the Music Matters website for more: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004dnp.
Read moreAn award-winning documentary produced and directed by Harriet and Peter Getzels, Executive Producers, Emily Vogl, Frank Vogl and William R. Rhodes in loving memory of Louise Tilzer Rhodes. The sponsor of the film is The Viktor Kalabis & Zuzana Ruzickova Foundation with generous support from good friends. The Foundation aims to secure as wide public screening of this award-winning film as possible, in the United States and across the world. If you would like more information about screening the film at a conference, a school, a university or music conservatory, in an arts or other cultural institution, a historical society or…
Read more
SUPRAPHON SU4210-2 [65:51] Both Viktor Kalabis’ Cello and Clarinet sonatas were written in the shadow of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Both are marked by it and display a brooding, sometimes almost obsessive quality wholly understandable given Kalabis’ own feelings of helplessness and protest. The Cello Sonata was finished the month after the August 1968 invasion and reveals a strenuous intensity occasionally leavened by refined, elegant paragraphs; moments of reprieve amidst the shadows. The slow movement most intensely bears the obsessive elements noted above, a product of rhythmic insistence not unlike Prokofiev’s, allied to an intensely introspective tolling motif. As with…
Read moreSpain. June 7, 2018 --- recital at the Centro Cultural Las Clarisas de Elche, Valencia, Spain. Svetlana Tovstukha, cello and Eduard V. Agullo guitar, performed a program that included Viktor Kalabis's Reminiszenzen Op. 46 for guitar.
Read more
PREMIERE IN JAPAN Viktor Kalabis - Clarinet Sonata Performed by Nozomi Ueda - In Osaka, Japan - May 18, 2017 at the Noix Accordées Music andArt Salon.
Read moreSunday Feature March 15, 2015: From the "skeletons copulating on a tin roof" jibes of conductor Sir Thomas Beecham to its unfavourable characterisation as the ideal instrument of the Addams Family, the harpsichord is an often misunderstood instrument - sometimes dividing audiences. Harpsichord virtuoso Mahan Esfahani heads off on a personal journey to uncover the instrument's chequered history, why the people who play it are not always its best advocates, and how this ancient instrument has a very modern face too. He heads to Prague to meet his mentor, 88 year old Czech harpsichord maestro Zuzana Ružicková and visits the workshop of…
Read more
December 2014 - Kalabis's Four Images op. 73 for flute and harpsichord, and the Sonata for Violin and Harpsichord, Op. 28 were performed by flautist Ane Domančić, violinist Evgenije Ephstein and on the harpsichord Marine Minkin. The Kalabis Piano Trio - Ondřej Lébr - violin, Lukáš Polák - violoncello, Miroslav Sekera - piano Viktor Kalabis: Piano Trio, Op.39 - I. Vivo Viktor Kalabis: Piano Trio, Op.39 - II. Adagio Viktor Kalabis: Piano Trio, Op.39 -III. Allegro vivo. Andante
Read moreSupraphon releases a box set of Viktor Kalabis's (1923-2006) symphonies and concertos that now join multi-disc sets from MSR Classics and Praha Digitals. Supraphon also releases two sets of double CDs of performances by Zuzana Růžičková - a wide-ranging "Homage" to the "First Lade of the Harpsichord" and works from England, Spain and Portugal. Viktor Kalabis's symphonies and concertos - the legacy of a distinct composer and a fraught era! SU 4109-2. Symphony No. 2 "Sinfonia pacis", Op 18; Symphony No. 3, Op. 33; Symphonic Variations, Op. 24; Concerto for Large Orchestra, Op. 25. Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 17;…
Read more
Czech composer Viktor Kalabis (1923-2006) was an unknown name to me when this 3-CD jewel box arrived in the mail. As I began scanning the Internet for basic research in writing this review, I was astonished to find that only two Kalabis works were listed on Arkivmusic.com, both buried in recordings of works by other composers. My wonder increased as I actually began listening to the composer’s music. Here was a distinctive, major voice of the 20th century, one who by rights should have a place in modern music near to Bartók or Kodály, two older contemporaries whom he admired,…
Read moreFrom the Dvorak Society: Zuzana Růžičková is world famous as a harpsichordist, with many prizes, honours and hundreds of recordings to her credit – not least the complete works of Bach on disc which she values most. She is well-known to and loved by many of our members. An important jubilee – her remarkable 85th.birthday – fell on 14th.January this year. Last year, on 27th.July, she received the Charles IV Cultural Prize in Aachen, Germany, an honour which is only bestowed on the most important personalities. At the ceremony she made a memorable speech in which she spoke of her…
Read more