Experience the first U.S. tour of the Czech National Philharmonic—one of the leading and oldest symphony orchestras in the Czech Republic—for a performance of beloved Eastern European masterpieces. Based in the historic capital of Moravia and founded in 1908, the orchestra was reconstituted after the Second World War in 1945. The Czech National Philharmonic Orchestra is famous for performing the works of Dvorák, Smetana, Martinu, Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, and Schubert. For the ensemble’s Forbes Center debut, Derek Gleeson conducts a program featuring Antonín Dvorák’s My Home, Op. 62; Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme in A major, Op. 33 featuring a cello soloist; and Bedrich Smetana’s Triumphal Symphony, Op. 6.
Guest Conductor
Derek Gleeson was born in Dublin, Ireland (a U.S./Irish dual citizen); Gleeson studied piano, percussion, composition, and conducting at the music conservatories of Dublin, London, and Vienna, and film scoring at the University of California Los Angeles. By age 11, Gleeson received many piano and percussion competition prizes within Ireland and Great Britain. At 15, he represented Ireland as an orchestral musician in the European Community Youth Orchestra. These early experiences moved him specifically toward a career in conducting.
Since September 2018, Gleeson has been the Founder and Executive/Artistic Director of the Film Scoring Academy of Europe and The European Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria. Upon the reconstitution of the Vienna Festival Orchestra, Gleeson was appointed its Music Director and Principal Conductor. Upcoming tours with VFO include China, the U.S., and India. Gleeson toured the USA in 2024 with the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra and, in 2025, will tour the U.S. with the Czech National Philharmonic Orchestra.
