Speech of thanks on the occasion of the Honorary Doctorate bestowed on Magdalena Kožená by the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts, 18 January 2022, Brno
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It seems almost unbelievable that I am today standing in cap and gown on the platform of this hallowed place in Brno. It is the town where I spent a large part of my childhood at rehearsals of the Brno Children’s choir Kantiléna, and where at the age of six I set out on the demanding and never-ending path to the discovery of the treasures of music. At that time our repertoire focused on two areas: that of Renaissance polyphony, from which stemmed my love of the music of the Early Baroque, and my interest in it; and that of the music of contemporary Czech composers. I have vivid memories of my first rehearsal in what was called the “Big Choir” where, after two years training in simple children’s trios and canons in choral preparation, I was thrown into the deep waters of the harmonically fascinating, but for me at that time still very complicated world of Bohuslav Martinů. With the passage of time I have ever more come to admire the courage of the choirmaster Ivan Sedláček as he educated the younger generation musically in the field of predominantly Czech contemporary music. For a group of our age, the musical language and textual content was often immensely challenging. Sedláček’s timeless vision and his artistic urge to present precisely this repertoire at international festivals and competitions was to be a tremendous inspiration for me in the years to come.
I was also very fortunate when attending the Elementary School for the Arts (ZUŠ) in Vranov Street to study under the enlightened teacher Jarmila Martínková, who placed great emphasis on musical curiosity, and instead of pieces like Für Eliska preferred to have me play piano compositions by Klement Slavický and Jiří Matys. Unfortunately, when I entered the Brno Conservatoire my participation in the children’s choir had to end, but my adventurous roller coaster ride through an inexhaustible amount of repertoire and musical styles was only at a beginning. The foundations of solo singing I learnt in Něva Megová’s class on folk songs arranged by Janáček, Martinů and Vítězslav Novák. My love of not only Antonín Dvořák’s compositions, but also, for example, the songs of Jan Václav Voříšek, Leopold Koželuh and Jaroslav Křička, grew deeper every day. Moreover, hardly an evening passed when I did not slip out with my fellow-students to a performance at the Janáček Opera, or to stand in the Besední dům to listen to one concert or another, or to see a performance in the Theatre Goose on a String. My meeting with the lutenist Miloslav Študent, at that time a student of musicology, was also a great milestone for me. Together we founded the ensemble Flores musicae, and he initiated me into the contemporary interpretation of not only the Italian Early Baroque masters but also the music of Jan Jakub Ryba, Adama Václav Michna of Otradovice and Jan Dismas Zelenka, for example. I consider this relatively short period of study at the Brno Conservatoire to have been absolutely fundamental for the formation of my musical imagination, the intensive study of vocal literature of different stylistic periods, and the general refinement of my musical taste. I am sure therefore you can imagine how powerfully the whole of my being is bound up with my native city and with the music of our whole nation. That was why I never thought of it just as a pleasant duty to include this repertoire regularly in my concert programmes and to introduce even lesser known Czech works on platforms abroad, but rather as something completely natural, or to put it better, a simple inner need. Even after many years of practice, I derive enormous joy from the repeated confirmation that the public throughout the world responds enthusiastically to our music, and that many leading musicians also love to play it. Without doubt I can count among the most valuable experiences of my life my cooperation with Jiří Bělohlávek in Káťa Kabanová at the Metropolitan Opera, the introduction of Dvořák’s Biblical Songs by my husband and the Berlin Philharmonic, and the concert and recording of the Three Fragments from Bohuslav Martinů’s Julietta in the Rudolfinum with Sir Charles Mackerras, whose love of Czech music led him to learn excellent Czech and to whom the Prague public gave a standing ovation for ten minutes before the music even started. As a mother of three, I am becoming increasingly aware of how essential it is, in today’s hectic and over-technological age, to guide the younger generation onto their own path to artistic self-expression, and to inspire them to the creation and recognition of beauty and of true human values. That was why I decided some years ago to establish a foundation for the support of elementary schools for the arts (ZUŠ), whose main mission is to draw to this completely unique and irreplaceable system of modern artistic education the public attention and recognition it properly deserves, as much as possible. I am concerned that these schools should remain as accessible as possible, and that direct contact with art should be an integral part of daily life for the majority of children and young people. I am deeply convinced that it is this often undervalued phenomenon that has a far-reaching impact on the general development of the culture of our whole nation.
It is with immense appreciation that I receive this honorary title from you today.
Thank you.
Magdalena Kožená
Laudatio by prof. Barbara Maria Willi and prof. Jindřich Petráš
Your Magnificence, Spectabiles, Honorabiles, members of Artistic Council of the Janáček Academy, honorary doctorands, ladies and gentlemen,
We have reached the solemn moment for the awarding of an honorary doctorate to a singer whom I esteem not only for her extraordinarily distinguished career, but also for her humanity, her ability to combine her global profession with motherhood, and the social commitment she manifests in her role of patron of Czech elementary art schools, reinforced today by her kind acceptance of an honorary doctorate conferred by the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts.
It is our honour today to award honorary doctorates to two exceptional artists. Since the day originally set for this ceremony, I have assumed the position of Dean of Faculty from Professor Jindřich Petráš. This places us in the extraordinarily luxurious position of having a dean for each doctorand, so allowing us to perform the honours with perfect symmetry.
At this formal sitting of the Artistic Council of the Janáček Academy, it is my honour to present the Faculty of Music’s proposal for the awarding of an honorary doctorate to Magdalena Kožená. For the following words about her career, I would like to draw on Prof. Petráš’s laudatio:
“Magdalena Kožená is a native of Brno, and her beginnings in music are bound up with this city—first in the piano class taught by Jarmila Martínková at the Elementary Art School on Vranovská street in Husovice and in the Kantiléna choir led by Ivan Sedláček, later at the Brno Conservatoire in the singing class taught by Něva Megová. As a student of singing, she went on to the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, where she was taught by Eva Bláhová. Her path as a professional soon brought her back to Brno, where her roles included Mozart’s Dorabella in Così fan tutte at the Janáček Theatre and Čipera in the premiere of Medek, Piňos and Štědroň’s Annals of the Avant-garde Wide Open at the Goose on a String Theatre.
“Her career was launched in 1995 with an outright victory in the Mozart Competition in Salzburg, Austria. The successes that followed this quickly established Magdalena Kožená as a mezzo-soprano of worldwide reputation. Although her musical interests embrace the Baroque and Classical periods so popular with listeners, they range far beyond them too. Her repertoire is impressively broad. It includes numerous operatic roles and also concert pieces written by contemporary composers specially for her. Her distinctive voice captivates audiences in concert halls all over the world and makes her a most welcome guest at celebrated music festivals. Her exceptional stage performances have graced the world’s leading opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera in New York, London’s Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, and opera houses in Paris, Munich, Vienna and Berlin.
“For her numerous recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Classics, Linn Records and Pentatone, Magdalena Kožená has won practically every important music-press award, most notably Artist of the Year at the prestigious Gramophone Classical Music Awards, as the only Czech woman in their history. She released the swing album Cole Porter on Brnofon, her own label. Thanks to her feel for dramaturgy and love of the music of her homeland, many of her CDs for multinational labels feature Czech works previously little known among international audiences. In 2001, her very first disc for Deutsche Grammophon, with a repertoire of Czech songs, won her the Gramophone Solo Vocal Award.
“As already mentioned, Magdalena Kožená is a tireless promoter of Czech music and Czech culture. She is a holder of the City of Brno Award. In 2014, she and her husband Simon Rattle were patrons of the Year of Czech Music. She is founder of the National Foundation for the Support of Elementary Art Schools, a patron of Kantiléna’s junior choir (called ‘Magdalenka’ in recognition), and a patron of the Concentus Moraviae music festival. She is also a constant, visible advocate for the building of Brno’s new concert hall.”
Magdalena Kožená is an icon for a whole generation of Czech artists. Her performance as a singer combines intelligence, technical perfection and high emotion. She has proved that an upright, honest artist from Moravia can indeed conquer the world. Magdalena Kožená’s career is a symbol of hope for the younger generation of artists.
prof. Barbara Maria Willi, Ph.D.
Dean of the Faculty of Music, JAMU