Czech Chamber Music Society • Markéta Cukrová

Thanks to her extraordinary versatility and sense of style, the mezzo-soprano Markéta Cukrová is a sought-after performer of vocal music from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. Her long-standing success in early music performance has led to collaborations with renowned ensembles and orchestras (including La Risonanza, Collegium Marianum, Collegium Vocale Gent, Collegium 1704, Orkiestra Historyczna, the Czech Philharmonic, and the Flemish Philharmonic), with whom she has made more than 20 recordings. She has earned acclaim for her performances of the art song repertoire (Haydn, Mozart, Tomášek, Berlioz) with the accompaniment played on the fortepiano. Her album of arias by J. D. Zelenka with Ensemble Tourbillon and her recording of J. J. Ryba’s Stabat Mater with the orchestra L’Armonia Terrena, which received the 2017 Diapason d’Or, are highly acclaimed by the European musical community. In 2018, she issued a CD of Antonín Dvořák’s Moravian Duets accompanied by Vojtěch Spurný playing the original piano from the estate of Antonín Dvořák (Bösendorfer, Vienna 1879), and in 2022, her recording of songs by Bohuslav Martinů and Benjamin Britten accompanied by Ivo Kahánek was nominated for an Anděl Award. Besides performing art songs, she also devotes herself to the oratorio and symphonic repertoire.

In addition to her extensive concert activity, Cukrová also devotes herself to theatre. Her performance in the role of Dardano in Handel’s opera Amadigi di Gaula at the Händelfestspiele in Göttingen earned her enthusiastic praise from critics and the festival’s invitation to give a solo recital. Her large repertoire spans from Monteverdi to Kaija Saariaho, and she makes regular guest appearances at the National Theatres in Brno, Prague, and Ostrava. In 2022 with the Czech Philharmonic led by Semyon Bychkov, she sang the role of the Second Wood Sprite in Dvořák’s Rusalka, then a year later she accepted an invitation from Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden to make a guest appearance in Charpentier’s Médee under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle. In recent years, she has twice been nominated as a finalist for the Opera Plus Award for Best Opera Singer of the Season and for three more important awards (the Thalia Award, the Southern Bohemia Thalia, and the Classic Prague Awards).

Cukrová studied singing at the State Conservatoire in Bratislava and also took private singing lessons under Marie Urbanová. She graduated from the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in English studies. She also teaches music and has authored a Czech translation of the book True Singing – a conversation with the successful singing teacher Margreet Honig about singing technique and teaching.

In 2022, Cukrová appeared in Vladimír Sommer’s Vocal Symphony at the Janáček Festival in Brno, enjoying wide critical acclaim. “Cukrová’s self-assured interpretation can be appreciated especially for the absolute clarity of expression, which she unwaveringly maintained throughout.” (Jiří Čevela, Harmonie)

Miroslav Sekera, winner of the 2002 Johannes Brahms International Competition in Portschach, Austria, had already won prizes at many important competitions in this country and abroad (F. Chopin International Competition in Mariánské Lázně, YAMAHA Scholarship Competition, International Piano Competition in Gaillard, France). In 2016 he won a prize from the “Salon de Virtuosi” music society in New York.

He has two solo CDs to his credit, which have won awards on the website Pizzicato.lu; for Joseph Summer, a contemporary composer from Boston, he has recorded seven more CDs in the USA. He collaborates with Czech Radio and with leading Czech orchestras and festivals, including a solo recital at the Rudolf Firkušný Piano Festival at the Rudolfinum. He makes guest appearances abroad, especially in Japan and the USA. 

He performs regularly with violinist Josef Špaček, mezzo-soprano Dagmar Pecková, and French horn player Radek Baborák.

He began playing piano at age three and graduated from the Prague Conservatoire (Eva Boguniová and Martin Ballý) and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (Miroslav Langer).