Magdalena Kozena

Born in Prague in 1979, the composer, conductor and chorus master Ondrej Adámek, who studied in his Czech hometown and in Paris, has already won numerous prestigious awards for his orchestral, chamber, vocal and electro-acoustic music. In his musical language, which also repeatedly incorporates elements of distant cultures, he creates unusual musical narratives. He seeks the authenticity of his interpretations by combining voices and movements, gestures and theatricality, phonetic and semantic aspects, and his own specially developed musical instruments.

Claudio Abbado was undeniably the supreme Mahler conductor of our time. With his Lucerne Festival Orchestra he has set new standards in the field of classical music, especially in the interpretation of works by Gustav Mahler. The core of the orchestra is provided by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, itself an élite body of players. Soloists like violinist Kolja Blacher, clarinettist Sabine Meyer, oboist Albrecht Mayer, violist Wolfram Christ, cellist Natalia Gutman, the Hagen Quartet and members of the Alban Berg Quartet to name just a few, make the Lucerne Festival Orchestra a star-studded ensemble.

Magdalena Kozena's fourth Pentatone album Folk Songs brings together folk-inspired song cycles from across the globe. Ranging from Berio's Folk Songs to sets by Bartok, Ravel and Montsalvatge, this collection provides a kaleidoscope of twentieth-century orchestral song composition. Kozena performs them together with the Czech Philharmonic under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle. Folk Songs is star mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozena's fourth album as part of her exclusive collaboration with Pentatone, after having presented the baroque cantatas recital album Il giardino dei sospiri and the songs in chamber-musical setting project Soiree in 2019, as well as Nostalgia together with Yefim Bronfman in 2021.

Magdalena Kožená's first all-Mozart album–and her first album in collaboration with partner Sir Simon Rattle–stands out as one of the highlights of 2006's Mozart Anniversary celebrations. Magdalena is a natural Mozart singer, garnering rave reviews and enchanting audiences wherever she performs Mozart on stage. Recent performances in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Berkeley and New York (Carnegie Hall) have brought her glowing praise.

Magdalena Kozená's silken mezzo delivers definitive interpretations of this luscious and enchanting orchestral-song repertoire. Magdalena Kozená, Sir Simon Rattle, and the Berliner Philharmoniker seduce in Ravel's Shéhérazade, stir and awe in Dvořák's austere Biblische Lieder, and render to the fullest the bittersweet potency of Mahler's intricately orchestrated Rückert Lieder. Recorded live at the Berlin Philharmonie, these performances excite with the intense musical understanding shared by this husband and wife musical dream team. This release is destined to rival the popularity of Kozená and Rattle's enthralling Mozart collaboration. This is the first in a new series of recording projects reviving the legendary partnership between DG and the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Magdalena Kozena, one of the most acclaimed recitalists of today, presents a personal collection of songs she has known since childhood and that form some of her earliest musical influences. A haunting collection of songs by Czech composers such as Dvorak, Janacek, Martinu, Schulhoff and Eben, all deeply rooted in the rich Czech folk song tradition. Like Magdalena explains about the songs on the album: They are just the sort a mother would sing to her baby. My mother is not a professional singer, but she loved to sing and knew a lot of songs!

Mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená hasn't often sung Baroque music. Thus, it is all the more impressive that when she does, she devises really innovative programs with unusual music. Her enthusiasm for the project may be gauged by her comment here: "I could hardly imagine more passionate, savage, uninhibited yet loving and caressing companions for these desperate heroines than Vaclav Luks and the musicians of Collegium 1704." She's right about the musicians, yet the real spotlight is on Kožená herself. The program consists of secular cantatas from the first half of the 18th century; this genre has been neglected amidst the general rediscovery of Baroque opera.