Prague’s Harmonie Foundation is celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2019, making it high time to catch up with the programme and take a closer look at its recent activities.

As yet, the Harmonie Foundation is the Czech Republic’s only Sistema Europe programme and presently operates projects in the 5th and 9th districts of the country’s capital.

Harmonie's home base

In Prague 5, the Harmonie Foundation has its base in the Kořenského Primary School, where it works with a diverse group of children of Romani, Vietnamese, African and Central European heritages. Its second project, in Prague 9, started up in 2015/16 and operates out of the Masarykova Primary School, working with children from the Klánovice Children’s Home. Both projects are free access, after-school operations and are open to all children from the surrounding area. The Harmonie Foundation also offers the same tuition at both locations, providing instruction in string instruments for two hours a day, three times a week (with one hour for sectionals and the other for rehearsing in an orchestra). With Prague 5 on the western banks of the Vltava and Prague 9 in the easternmost extremes of the city, the two projects practise for orchestral playing separately, however, they come together several times a year to put on joint public performances.

As one would expect of a Sistema Europe member, the Harmonie Foundation adheres to the full gamut of Sistema principles. And, the children in Prague additionally benefit from a focus on high quality instruction and leadership. The Kořenského & Masarykova orchestras were founded by Jiří Korynta of the Prague Film Orchestra and Chuhei Iwasaki of the Prague Conservatoire and the children also have the good fortune to receive the patronage, occasional accompaniment and guidance of the virtuoso pianist, Ivo Kahánek.

Photos of Harmonie's participation in SEYO18 & key concerts in 2019

All photography c/o the Harmonie Foundation

Use the arrows to scan the gallery

 

Speaking with Lenka Dandová from the Harmonie Foundation in Gothenburg last month, we soon got a taste for the work and the impact of the programme as well as insight into some of the events it's been involved in over the past few months.

Better together

Lenka told us how the Harmonie Foundation typically takes children on at the age of 6/7 and how they then progress through the ranks according to their own ability and musical achievements, with children generally grouped in categories of beginners, regulars and young leaders. In keeping with the situation of many Sistema Europe members, Harmonie also runs contrary to its common national modes of one-on-one tuition and educates its children together in an orchestra from the very start – something which the Czech team has been quick to play on in a humorous video it has put together.

Watch Harmonie's humorous take on the virtues of communal learning & playing

As our conversation continued, Lenka expressed how the advantages of the communal learning approach had been making their mark, both socially and musically. She told us how, in particular, the children of the Klánovice Children’s Home benefitted from their orchestral participation, with the communal learning environment and group support structure helping many to gain confidence and overcome otherwise troubled childhoods.

Youth ownership

The Harmonie Foundation’s young leader strategy is one of the factors that ensures that this approach works. With proficient young members of the orchestra assisting in teaching and providing peer role models, the programme is able to harmonise the integration of different age groups in one class, to boost learning through mutual assistance, to inspire the younger students and to offer the senior students the opportunity to gain experience in positions of responsibility and leadership from as early as their mid to late teens.

Last year, on the eve of their 10th anniversary, several of the Harmonie Foundation's young leaders also gained the opportunity to attend SEYO18 in England. In August, seven senior students accompanied Peter Smékal and Classic Praha’s Marek Šulc for 10 days of specialist tuition at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and performances in London’s Festival Hall and Birmingham’s Symphony Hall alongside c.200 other young musicians from some 15 different countries.

Harmonie's' musicians join rehearsals in the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire at SEYO18

And, the Harmonie Foundation and its young leaders have, of course, also enjoyed their own milestone concerts back in Prague this year, celebrating the programme’s 10th anniversary with (amongst others!) performances on Střelecký Island, in the Czech Museum of Music and in Prague’s Wallenstein Palace Gardens.

Side-by-side

The first of this anniversary year’s largest concerts was in the Czech Museum of Music, where the young musicians took to the stage with the players of the Prague Conservatoire’s string orchestra. As part of an evening conducted by Chuhei Iwasaki and Roman Mad’ar, the Harmonie musicians’ section of the concert began with Te Deum and included classics, such as Beethoven’s Ode to Joy and Händel’s Sarabande, as well as Mark William’s Fiddles on Fire and a rousing side-by-side cello performance from Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Cellos, featuring fantastic solos by Julie Krejči and a player from the Prague Conservatoire.

 

Watch the Harmonie Foundation perform Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Cellos
Click here if you cannot see/hear the video.

Celebrating in style

In April, the occasion then came to officially celebrate the Harmonie Foundation’s 10th anniversary in the grandest of surroundings, as Prague’s Wallenstein Palace opened its doors to the programme’s musicians for an evening dedicated to their music and to the achievements of Harmonie’s first decade. The historic baroque residence of the Habsburg generalissimo, Albrecht von Wallenstein, and the current seat of the Czech Senate provided a spectacular backdrop to the orchestra’s open-air performance before Marek Hilšer (a Czech senator & recent presidential candidate) and Harmonie’s Milada Cholujová ceremonially opened the exhibition and a tour of the exhibits in the palace’s Mythological Hall commenced.

Both the exhibition and the concert took place under the auspices of the former teacher and current 1st vice-president of the Czech Senate, Jiří Růžička, and the exhibition remained on public display from the 18th April through to the 9th June.

Open to all

Just a month later, the programme held its annual Střelecký Island concert. Much like the programme itself, this special concert format allows all who wish to do so to join in. Children who want to take part in the concert are all invited to join the Harmonie Foundation’s orchestra for a general rehearsal and, subsequently, for the concert itself.

 

Watch the Harmonie Foundation perform Vangelis' Chariots of Fire
Click here if you cannot see/hear the video.

In this year’s edition of the Střelecký Island concert, Ivo Kahánek accompanied the players on the piano, with Lenka Dandová and Roman Mad’ar conducting and Classic Praha’s Marek Šulc making a special appearance to join Lenka in a duet from the humorous modern Czech fairy tale, Šíleně smutná princezna (The Incredibly Sad Princess).

A diverse repertoire

The Střelecký Island concert brought together the repertoire from the whole school year, combining musical fairy tales and classical favourites, such as Mozart’s Serenade No. 13 (Eine kleine Nachtmusik), with film music from Chariots of Fire and Pirates of the Caribbean and Latin influences in the form of Gardel’s Por una cabeza and Ritmos ciganos.

Yet, we would like to give the final word on the Harmonie Foundation to those who know it best, for, this year's Střelecký Island concert was captured on camera and you can see glimpses of the concert and an introduction to the hopes, wishes and perspectives of the Harmonie team in the official concert video (with English subtitles) below:

Watch the Harmonie Foundation's official video from its 2019 Střelecký Island concert

Want to find out more and/or support the programme?

We will certainly revisit the Harmonie Foundation going forwards, but, if you want to keep track of the programme yourself as it heads into its second decade, then you can follow it on its own website and on its Facebook and YouTube channels by clicking on the links below:

https://www.facebook.com/NadacniFondHarmoniefacebook.com/FondHarmonie
http://en.nfharmonie.cz/en.nfharmonie.cz/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/FondHarmonieyoutube.com/FondHarmonie

If you have been inspired by what you have seen and wish to financially support the programme, then you can make a donation via the Harmonie Foundation’s donations page on darujme.cz or contribute to its work by, for example, donating a string instrument for its children to play (links below):

Donating to the Harmonie FoundationDonating to Harmonie
Donate an instrument to the Harmonie FoundationInstruments for Harmonie

And, if you live in Prague and have the requisite musical and pedagogical experience, then there are also currently two opportunities to really get involved in the Harmonie Foundation by joining its teaching team as a teacher of either the cello or the violin. To find out more, click on the link below (in Czech):

Stát se lektorem pro Harmonie!Stát se lektorem pro Harmonie!

Congratulations!

We at Sistema Europe would like to close by congratulating the Harmonie Foundation on its first decade and by wishing both the educational team and the young musicians in Prague all the very best in the years to come. We look forward to hearing about their future adventures and to reporting on them again soon!

 

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