Future plans with the Czech Philharmonic include new recordings for Decca, as well as significant tours abroad. In 2018, the orchestra and Bělohlávek will return for concert and opera-in-concert to New York’s Carnegie Hall. They are also invited to return to the Vienna Musikverein for a further residency. Major tours within Europe, and to the USA/Canada and Asia are also planned.
Jiří Bělohlávek’s guest conducting career sees him working with leading orchestras across Europe and North America, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London, where he is now Conductor Laureate following his term as Chief Conductor from 2007 to 2012, the Rotterdam Philharmonic (where he holds the title as Principal Guest Conductor), and as a guest at the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Washington, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Deutsches Symphony Berlin, and many more.
In addition to his well-known affinity with and love of a broad range of music by famous and not-so-famous composers from the Czech Republic, Jiří Bělohlávek has a special relationship with British repertoire, and while at the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted world premieres of many works. He also enjoyed the rare privilege of conducting the Last Night of the Proms on two occasions, in 2010 and 2012. In 2012, Queen Elizabeth II appointed him an honorary CBE for services to music.
He also regularly conducts opera, and has in recent seasons conducted at the Vienna State Opera, Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera Covent Garden, Glyndebourne Festival and Zurich Opera. His repertoire has included operas by Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, Wagner, Janáček, and Martinů. He frequently conducts lesser-known operas in concert productions, and has made a series of opera-in-concert CDs with the BBC Symphony Orchestra of works such as Smetana’s Dalibor and Janáček’s The Excursions of Mr. Brouček. In 2016 he conducted Jenůfa at the San Francisco Opera.
Mr. Bělohlávek has an extensive discography, and, in addition to the new complete Dvořák symphony and concerto cycle released last season, new recordings of the greatest Czech repertoire are also planned as part of an ongoing project with Decca. He was the first conductor since Herbert Von Karajan to receive the Gramophone Award for Orchestral Recording two years running.
