Collegium Marianum Baroque orchestra
Since it was founded in 1997, the Prague ensemble Collegium Marianum has focused on presenting the music of the 17th and 18th centuries, especially by composers who were born or active in central Europe. One of the few professional ensembles specialising in this field in the Czech Republic, Collegium Marianum not only gives musical performances, but regularly also stages scenic projects.
The ensemble works under the artistic leadership of the traverso player Jana Semerádová who also regularly appears as a soloist with some of the most eminent European orchestras. Her active research, together with her study of Baroque gesture, declamation, and dance, has enabled Semerádová to broaden the artistic profile of the Collegium Marianum ensemble from a purely musical focus to multi-genre projects featuring Baroque dance and theatre. This background also informs her unique, thematic programming, which has resulted in a number of modern-day premieres. The ensemble works closely with renowned soloists (Hana Blažíková, Simona Houda-Šaturová, Roberta Mameli, Raffaele Pe, Chantal Santon Jeffery, etc.) and has carried out projects with leading conductors and directors (e.g. Andrew Parrott, Rudolf Lutz, Benjamin Lazar, and Jean-Denis Monory). Its artistic collaboration with the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles has produced dramaturgically extraordinary projects involving French Baroque music and dance (such as Michel-Richard de Lalande’s Grands Motets), including modern premieres. Collegium Marianum also presents original projects with the Buchty a loutky puppet theatre company (for example Francesco Cavalli’s Calisto and Georg Frideric Handel’s Acis and Galatea).
Collegium Marianum has received critical acclaim both at home and abroad. The ensemble has appeared extensively on Czech Radio and TV as well as on radio abroad. The performances of the ensemble at music festivals and prestigious venues, including Oude Muziek Utrecht, Musikfestspiele Potsdam Sanssouci, Händel-Festspiele in Halle, Tage Alter Musik Regensburg, Bachfest Leipzig, Festival de Sablé, Klangvokal Dortmund, Palau de la Música Catalana (Barcelona), Prague Spring, St. Wenceslas Music Festival, and Concentus Moraviae, have met with great success. For the Händel-Festspiele in Halle festival in 2023, Collegium Marianum prepared a stage performance of Handel’s opera Alessandro Severo.
In 2008, the ensemble started successful cooperation with the Supraphon label, which has already released ten of its recordings of music by well-known and lesser-known composers, such as Jan Dismas Zelenka, František Jiránek, Jan Josef Ignác Brentner, and Josef Antonín Sehling as part of their “Music from Eighteenth-Century Prague” series. In 2022, the CD “A Lily Among Thorns” with Hana Blažíková was nominated for the Anděl Awards.
Collegium Marianum is the ensemble in residence of the Summer Festivities of Early Music international festival. In January 2010, it received the merit award for the quality and dissemination of Czech music from the Czech section of the International Music Council of UNESCO.
