| The conductor and French horn player Ondřej Vrabec (1979) is a graduate of the Prague Conservatory and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. As a conductor he builds on the experience gained during his rich career as a solo, chamber, and orchestra player. Already at the age of 17 he became the principal horn player of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, where he holds the position of soloist to this day. As a soloist, he has performed with dozens of national and international orchestras under the baton of famous conductors (such as Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Ian Volkov). A great part of his activities includes chamber music (Brahms Trio Prague, PhilHarmonia Octet, Juventus Quintet, etc.). He has recorded most of the large number of French horn compositions dedicated to him, which he often has commissioned either directly or indirectly. He is a soughtafter teacher, leads master classes (Japan, Canada, Great Britain, Czech Republic), and collaborates regularly with the Japanese educational society And Vision Inc. Tokyo. As a conductor, he cooperates with the majority of Czech professional orchestras, including the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. He has also conducted foreign ensembles (Reykjavik Chamber Orchestra, Slovak State Philharmonic Košice, London Soloists Chamber Orchestra, Galeria Wind Orchestra Tokyo, and Danish National Symphony Orchestra) and participated in international festivals (Prague Spring, Mitte Europa, Český Krumlov). He is a permanent member of the international conductors’ team of the Ostrava Days festival. He has led two tours of the Prague Philharmonic, one to South Korea and one to China, both of which were the ensemble’s first tour of that region. In 2012 he conducted the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in one of the programme peaks of the season series. The concerts were recorded by the Octavia Records Japanese gramophone company. Together with the Czech Philharmonic Collegium, he recorded the DVD Transformations (Universal Music, chosen as the record of the year) and a CD of concerto works for violin and viola (Gabriela Demeterová, Supraphon). |
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