Did you know that Czech Republic has its own world renown harpist? Her name is Kateřina Englichová.
Born in 1969 in Prague, Kateřina Englichová studied the art of playing harp at the Prague Conservatory. She received the Fulbright scholarship at the end of the 1980s thanks to which she was able to study at the The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. She made her solo debut in Carnegie Hall in New York in 1998.
She participated in many master classes and later also taught many in USA (Julliard School of Music, Curtis Institute of Music), Hongkong, Luxembourg, Italy and Canada. Every summer, she teaches courses at the Ameropa festival in Santuario di Crea, Italy.
If you’d like to know something about her instruments, she plays the harps Lyon&Healy No.23 Gold and Lyon&Healy Black Electroacoustic with 47 strings and 7 pedals, weighing around 40 kg/88 lbs and the dimensions being 1,8 x 1,2 m/5.9 x 3.9 ft.
In 2008, Englichová performed with the Czech Philharmonics in 2008 and in 2016 she released a solo album called Musica per arpa and she’s been working on the album Humoresque since 2021. She participated in over 40 albums. She performs classical as well as contemporary music with Czech and international orchestras (Philadelphia Orchestra, City Chamber orchestra of Hong-Kong, Brno Philharmonics and others) and famous conductors like Jakub Hrůša or Simon Rattle. Composers like Zdeněk Lukáš, Sylvie Bodorová, P. Zimmerli or Karel Janovický wrote music for her.
In 2017, she finished her postgraduate studies at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin, Germany.
She won many awards, let’s mention at least the Prague Classic Award 2018. In the same year, she was on the jury of Israel Harp Competition.
She’s married to the Czech diplomat Václav Bartuška and has one daughter.
Learn more about the Czech Music Scene and also other Famous Czech People.
Featured photo: zapoklady.cz
Photo: englichova.cz
