Collegium 1704, Collegium Vocale 1704 & Václav Luks
Biography Collegium 1704, Collegium Vocale 1704 & Václav Luks
Václav Luks
began his studies at the Pilsen Conservatory and at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (French horn, harpsichord). He then continued his studies with specialized research on early music at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basil, Switzerland in the studios of J.–A. Bötticher and J. B. Christensen in the field of period keyboard instruments and historical performance practice.
During his studies in Basel and in the years that followed, he gave concerts all over Europe and overseas (USA, Mexico, Japan) as the horn soloist of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. After returning from abroad in 2005, he transformed Collegium 1704 from a chamber music ensemble that had already existed when he was a conservatory student (since 1991) into a Baroque orchestra, and he founded Collegium Vocale 1704. The immediate impetus for their founding was a project initiated by Václav Luks titled Bach – Prague – 2005 presenting the major vocalworks by J. S. Bach. This project marks the beginning of residential collaboration with the Prague Spring International Music Festival.
With Václav Luks, Collegium 1704 has quickly established itself among the world’s elite ensembles devoted to performing the music of the 17th and 18th centuries, and with his international artistic activities, Luks has played a significant part in the renaissance of the music of the Bohemian composers Jan Dismas Zelenka and Josef Mysliveček.
In 2008, he founded the successful concert series Music Bridge Prague – Dresden. Since the autumn of 2012, we have been able to encounter Václav Luks regularly at Prague’s Rudolfinum, where he is realizing a concert series with Collegium 1704 that focuses on the art of singing in the 17th and 18th centuries. Since autumn 2015, the two concert series were merged into one Season held in Prague and Dresden.
Recent and upcoming guest performances include appearances at the Salzburg Festival, the Lucerne Festival, the Chopin Festival in Warsaw, the Festival Wratislavia Cantans, the Berliner Philharmonie, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Theater and der Wien, the Konzerthaus Wien, and the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. He will also serve as artist-in-residence at the renowned Utrecht Early Music Festival and the Leipzig Bach Festival.
Besides working intensively with Collegium 1704, he also collaborates with other renowned ensembles, such as La Cetra Barockorchester Basel, Dresdner Kammerchor or the Nederlandse Bachvereniging. Václav Luks has made both orchestral and solo recordings for the ACCENT, Supraphon, and Zig-Zag Territoires labels, and he has been invited to sit on juries of international competitions (Johann Heinrich Schmelzer Wettbewerb Melk, Prague Spring International Music Competition, Bach-Wettbewerb Leipzig).
