Faculty

Josef Ager has been a lecturer in German at the University of Economics in Prague since 1991 and has taught German at NYU Prague since the Fall of 1998. He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Vienna.

Currently the Ambassador-at-Large for Energy Security at the Foreign Ministry in Prague, Václav Bartuška was also the Czech Commissioner General at EXPO 2000 in Hannover, Germany. He was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Columbia University (1994-95) and a Marshall Fellow in 1999.

Bartuška graduated from the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University in 1992. As a student there, he was among those who started the strike in November 1989; the result of which--to the suprise of everyone--was the peaceful overthrow of Communism (the so-called Velvet revolution). Because of his previous experience with the Secret Police, Bartuška was elected as the students’ representative to the parliamentary committee which oversaw the investigation of the Communist Party security apparatus. He then published his first book, Polojasno, which sold 230,000 copies and made him independent enough to spend most of the 1990’s travelling, writing three more books and basically avoiding any serious work. 

Veronika Peimer Bednářová is an international reporter for the contemporary Czech cultural and international affairs magazine REFLEX, published by the Swiss publishing house Ringier.
 
During her career, Bednářová has interviewed many internationally known personalities, most recently the former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Other prominent persons she has interviewed include the actors Robert De Niro, Danny DeVito, Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman, Harvey Keitel, the film director Milos Forman, playwright Peter Shaffer, designer Philippe Starck, magician David Copperfield, and many others. 

Bednářová  specializes in cultural and foreign affairs. She wrote a special 32-page feature on Silicon Valley, covered the situation in the Iraqi city of Basra, and wrote a travel column called Somewhere in Africa while living in South Africa in 2005.  She was awarded the 1st Ringier 2002 Award for the Best Cover Story of the Year for covering the 9/11 events in New York and the 1st Ringier 2005 Award for covering the AIDS epidemic in Africa. 

After receiving her Master‘s Degree from Charles University, Bednářová spent two years (1999-2001) at New York University as a Fulbright Scholar earning a Master’s degree in Arts Management. While there, she also worked for the Lincoln Center of the Performing Arts.

She also works as editor-in-chief of the Czech-English Festival Dailies at the International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary.

In 2006, she published a book of her successful travel stories, My American Beauty. 

Before moving to Prague, Amy Benjamin was Assistant U.S. Attorney, Department of Justice, where she litigated both affirmative and defensive cases on behalf of the U.S. Government in the Federal Courts of the Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

A graduate of Princeton (BA, History) and Yale Law School, Benjamin is a former Fulbright scholar and has clerked for Honorables Stephen G. Breyer and Leonard B. Sand. She speaks Spanish and German. 

Jan Bernard is a professor of Film History and Theory at the Academy of Dramatic Arts (FAMU) in Prague. The former Dean of the Film School at FAMU, Bernard has Ph.D., Doc and CsC degrees in Film from Charles University. He is the author of several books on film and theatre. 

Vocal instruction

Karolína Bubleová Berková graduated from the Music Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague in the class of René Tuček. On the basis of a scholarship awarded by the Italian Cultural Institute Berková she completed singing studies in the first half of 2001 at the Conservatorio di Giuseppe Verdi in Milan in Italy (Prof. Stelia Doz, Prof. Sonia Turchetta).

In 1997, Berková won the International Singing Competition of Ema Destinn and in 2001 the was the laureate of the International Singing Competition of Antonín Dvořák in Karlovy Vary.

Among her most significant successes are: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro – tour with the National Theatre in Japan; Leoš Janáček: The Diary of a Vanished Man – Paris, France; in May 2004, she represented the Czech Republic at the Berlin gala concert of singers from the ten countries entering the European Union accompanied by the Berliner Symphoniker orchestra conducted by Lior Shambadal; in September 2004, she appeared with the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Vladimír Válek in Mahler's 4th Symphony and in November 2004, she gave concerts of religious music in Israel. In 2005, she interpreted the mezzosoprano part in the oratorium Ecce Homo by Jan Hanuš during the Prague Spring Festival. Since 2010, she has become a guest soloist for educational recital programs held by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra production in Rudolfinum. A solo recital together with harpist Laura Caramellino in Milano, Italy, has crowned their co-operation in May 2011.

You can find more about Karolína Bubleová Berková on her website  www.berkova.cz

Martin Bursik graduated with a doctorate in environmental studies at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the Charles University in Prague in 1984. He was the Czech Republic’s environment minister in 1998. From 2005-2009 he was a chair of the Czech Green Party. After the parliamentary elections in 2006, when the Greens entered the Parliament for the first time in Central and Eastern Europe, he became a vice-prime minister, minister for the environment (2007-2009) and a green deputy of the Czech Parliament (2006-2010).

During the Czech Presidency in the first half of 2009 he represented the EU Council at the international climate negotiations with mayor economies of the United States of America, China, India, Canada, Japan, Russia, Australia, African states and others.

Bursík was an the activist of the Movement for Civic Liberty and member of the Vaclav Havels' Civic Forum after the Velvet Revolution in November 1989.

He currently works as a consultant in the area of energy and environment as a director of Ecoconsulting s.r.o. 

Kateřina Čapková is research fellow at the Institute for Contemporary History, Czech Academy of Sciences. She also teaches courses at Faculty of Arts, Charles University.

Čapková studied History and German Studies at Charles University in Prague, at the University of Vienna and in Münster (Germany). In 1998/1999, she was a visiting student at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and she spent a semester at INALCO (Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilization) in Paris in 2000. Further research stays abroad include the University in Basel (2005) and Free University in Berlin (2010/2011).

In 2005, Čapková published Češi, Němci, Židé? Národní identita Židů v Čechách, 1918-1938, about national identities of Jews in Bohemia in the interwar period. The English revised version is forthcoming by Berghahn Books in spring 2012. Her next book, written together with Michal Frankl, was focused on Czechoslovak refugee politics in the interwar period and the situation of German and Austrian refugees in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s (Nejisté útočiště. Československo a uprchlíci před nacismem, 1933-1938, Prague 2008; German version is forthcoming by Boehlau Verlag in 2012).

Čapková is currently working on a comparative study about Jewish settlements in the Czechoslovak and Polish border regions after the WWII.

Rob Cameron is the BBC's correspondent in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, covering politics, human interest stories, arts and other issues for BBC Radio, BBC TV and BBC Online. Rob moved to Prague in 1993. He began his radio career in 1999, when he joined Radio Prague, the international service of Czech Radio, to which he remains a regular contributor. Cameron began reporting for the BBC in 2001, and became the BBC's Czech and Slovak correspondent in 2004. He has also reported for the BBC from Albania, Poland, Russia and the United States. He is currently working on a book based on a three-week journey across the Czech Republic by slow train. 

A well-received lecturer and a translator from Czech, Slovak, Russian and French, Clarice Cloutier currently teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in Central European literature & culture at Charles University in Prague and New York University in Prague, as well as serving as a guest researcher and lecturer at the Universiteit van Amsterdam in The Netherlands. 

Dr. Cloutier completed her pre-college Slavic studies at Yale University and graduated Magna cum laude with an Honors degree in Russian from Dartmouth College. She subsequently received her M.A. from Princeton University in Russian and Czech Studies and a Master of Studies in Slavonic Studies from the University of Oxford (UK), specializing in 20th Century Czech poetry. In 2005, she received her Ph.D. in Czech Literature at Charles University. Clarice Cloutier has been inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa and Golden Key National Honor Societies and has received the Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn prize for Slavic Studies. She is the author of poetry and has been awarded several prizes for her poetry recitations. Most recently, she has published (together with Bohemist Bronislava Volková) the several-hundred page book entitled Up the Devil’s Back: A Bi-lingual Anthology of 20th Century Czech Poetry http://www.slavica.com/newrecent.html and is currently preparing an anthology of contemporary Slovak prose for the Dalkey Archive Press at the University of Illinois.  

Viola

Prague-born viola player Karel Doležal studied music at the State Conservatory under professors Vincenc Zahradník and Lubomír Malý. He supplemented his artistic education studying under distinguished professor and viola player Ladislav Černý (the Prague Quartet member) in 1972-1975. Doležal founded his own string quartet when he was twenty-four which won the title of laureate at the Prague Spring competition in 1975. He was awarded the silver medal at the International Festival of Young Soloist in Bordeaux, France, in 1977. He frequently performs as a soloist in many European countries and records for television and radio (including BBC and others). Doležal´s main activities are still focused on the artistic direction of, and performance with, Doležal Quartet. The ensemble has made successful tours of the United States and Japan. His role as teacher is also important: he has conducted masterclasses in Finland, in the Czech Republic as part of the Bohemia Festival, and elsewhere. He teaches at the Prague Conservatory. Many of his students are successful in their artistic careers at home and in the international context as well (they continue their careers in France, Germany, et al.). His students originate from various countries (e.g., Norway, Italy, Japan, Korea).

Since 1989, Ivana Doležalová has worked as a researcher, interpreter and co-correspondent for the Central European Office of National Public Radio and The New York Times in Prague plus for various other foreign media (BBC, Danish TV, ABC, PBS). She has also worked as a translator and moderator for Center of Independent Journalism in Prague, Czech Republic, and has translated the works of Fay Weldon, Woody Allen, Susan Sontag, Erica Jong, and Sue Grafton.

A Fulbright scholar and later visiting professor teaching media, film and literature at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois and University of Washington, Seattle, US (1994-97, 1999, and 2001), Dolezalova was also invited to give talks on film, history and feminism at University of Washington, Stanford and Harvard.

Presently, she is lecturing on Czech and European Film, Collegium Hieronymi Pragensis and Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic. Dolezalova also writes articles, reviews and interviews for various magazines and newspapers (Respekt weekly and The Presence quarterly). She is a Juror of the International Committee of Women of Europe Award, Brussels, Belgium and President of the Czech Committee of Women of Europe Award.       

Petr Dostál is currently a professor of Political and Social Geography at Charles University and, since 2003, chairman of the Commission on Social Sciences for the Czech government's Research and Development Council.

Born in Prague, Dostál studied geography from 1965 to 1968 at Charles University and fled Czechoslovakia in the autumn of 1968 to settle in the Netherlands. He graduated with a degree in social geography from the State University of Groningen and received his Ph.D. in regional economics and economic geography from the Faculty of Economic Sciences and Econometrics of the University of Amsterdam.

Dostál taught at the University of Amsterdam from 1972 to 1998. He has published papers in leading journals and books on issues of ethnonationalism, regional development, territorial administration and post-communist political mobilisation, as well as on European integration and public opinion. Dostál has authored or co-authored five books. He is currently a member of the editorial boards of four international journals, including Geojournal, An International Journal of Human Geography and Environmental Sciences (Kluwer Publisher, Dordrecht) and The Belgian Journal of Geography (Royal Belgian Society of Geography). 

Studied at the Academy of the Performing Arts in Prague with Professor Boris Krajný. She has performed in Germany, France, Switzerland, Belgium and the USA.

In 2012, she presented her American piano solo debut at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

In 2000, Alice Fiedlerová was invited to collaborate on the "In Memory of the Czech Terezín Composers Project" as the featured performer for the opening concert. Under the sponsorship of the Hans Krása Foundation, she has also presented numerous programs of works by Terezin composers Pavel Haas, Hans Krása and Viktor Ullman. In 2001, she performed with Czech mezzo-soprano Olga Černá at the Brücken für die Zukunft Festival in Germany.

Alice Fiedlerová has collaborated with many outstanding soloists. She has worked with Yossi Arnheim, principal flutist of the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, Vadym Borysov, concertmaster of the National Philharmonic of Ukraine, Canadian opera singer Melanie Gall, American bass-baritone Andrew Schultze of Columbia College Chicago, soprano Lynn Eustis of Boston University and tenor Brian Nedvin of Old Dominion University.

Since 2006, Alice Fiedlerová has been a featured artist for the International Dvorak Society's American Spring Festival, held each year in venues throughout the Czech Republic. She specializes in Czech piano literature for four-hands, together with American pianist Joan DeVee Dixon. Their program of Czech Dances was hosted by the Embassy of the Czech Republic, Washington, DC for the Festival of Mutual Inspirations: Antonín Dvořák in 2011.

 Jaroslava Gajdosova received her MA and Ph.D. in Sociology from the New School for Social Research in New York and an MA in history from Charles University in Prague. She has taught Sociology at Anglo American University in Prague and currently teaches courses on identity, gender and inequality at NYU and at AAU. Her main teaching and research interests lie in Cultural Sociology and in Critical Theory. Gajdosova has been published in academic journals on contemporary sociological theories and on German collective memory and identity. She has also worked as a researcher fellow at the New School University, Columbia University, Universität Greifswald and Humboldt Universität Berlin.

Piano, Group piano

American pianist Patricia Goodson is active as a solo recitalist and chamber musician throughout Europe and North America. Her playing, praised by critics as 'powerful and seductive' and 'breathtakingly virtuosic' has been featured on radio (NPR, BBC, Czech Radio and others) and television (US, Poland, Ukraine, Czech Republic). Her solo CD of contemporary American music, 'Strange Attractors', for Albany Records, received uniformly enthusiastic and positive reviews. She records also for Czech Radio and Czech Television, and in spring 2010 will begin to record a three CD series of the complete solo piano works of Czech composer Josef Bohuslav Foerster.

Ms. Goodson has lived full-time in Prague since 1991, and her broad repertoire encompasses music by Czech composers of all periods such as Fibich, Suk, Tomášek, Janácek, Foerster, Fišer, Kapr, Loudová, Matoušek and Dvorák in addition to masterworks by Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and others. She works actively with contemporary composers, and has had many pieces written especially for her.

Ms. Goodson has performed with leading Czech artists such as cellists Petr Nouzovský and Jirí Bárta and pianist Milan Langer. Upcoming projects include a tour of Europe with Mr. Nouzovský, showcasing music by composer Geraldine Mucha, and recordings of music by Mrs. Mucha, Debussy, Fauré, Arnold Bax and others.

In addition to performing, Ms. Goodson wrote and co-hosted 'Encore', a radio show about Czech music for Radio Prague, the English-language service of Czech Radio. She has also collaborated on radio shows for the BBC. She has written extensively about music and musical life for the English-language weekly the Prague Post, for Strings magazine and other publications.

Ms. Goodson received her education at Duke University (BA, with honors) and at the Peabody Conservatory (MM). She currently serves on the piano faculty of New York University in Prague.

http://www.patriciagoodson.com

 Flute, Chamber Ensembles

Conservatory of Music in Brno (2000-2006)

• 2004, 2005 Masterclasses at Janácek Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno with

Václav Kunt

• 2004: CD recording for Czech radio in Brno:

J. Ibert - Piéce pour flute seule, O. Mácha - Variations for Flute and Piano

• 2005: Masterclass in Paris with Philippe Bernold

• 2005: International Flute competition in Bucharest

 

Music and Dance Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (2006-2011)

• 2006: Masterclass with Carlo Jans (Prague)

• 2007: Masterclass with Peter Lukas Graf (Switzerland)

• since 2007: member of the Orchestra of National Theatre in Prague

• 2008: ISA – International summer academy Prague-Wien-Budapest

• 2008: Masterclass with Philippe Bernold (Nice)

 

Orchestral experience

• 2000-2006: Symphonic and Wind Orchestra of the Conservatory in Brno

• 2003-2004: Moravian Chamber Orchestra

• 2005: Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra in Olomouc

• 2006: Czech Chamber Soloists

• 2007: Prague Philharmonia

• 2007, 2008: Academic Chamber Soloists

• since 2007: National Theatre in Prague (Piccolo and 2nd Flute)

• since 2008: Ostravská Banda (modern and new music orchestra)

• since 2011: National Theatre in Prague (1st Flute)

• since 2011: Czech Philharmonic Orchestra (1st Flute substitute)

Diplomas

• Diploma Specialist (Conservatory in Brno)

• Master of Arts (Music and Dance Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague)

• Cambridge ESOL - FCE Diploma

Currently, Tereza Havelková is working on her Ph.D. dissertation on contemporary operatic theatre at the Charles University in Prague, and she is a member of the ASCA (Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis) theory seminar.

Havelková received a Master’s degree (summa cum laude ) in musicology from Charles University in Prague in 2001. In the same year, she founded HIS Voice, a contemporary music magazine, and she served as editor-in-chief until September 2004. She also regularly contributed to the music magazines Harmonie and Czech Music and to the Czech daily newspaper Lidove noviny. From 2002-2003, she was a Fulbright scholar at Columbia University, and in the spring of 2005 she was a visiting research scholar at Amsterdam University. 

Dita Hradecká is currently working on her Ph.D. dissertation on 19th century piano music at Charles University in Prague where she received a Master's degree in musicology in 2006. Since 2000 she has been the editor of the cultural section of Lidove noviny, the daily Czech journal, covering classical music. As an employee of the Czech Ministery of Culture between 2012-2013 she was responsible for the state support to music arts. Hradecká regularly contributes to music magazines Harmonie, Hudebni rozhledy and Czech Music Quaterly, for the daily newspaper Hospodarske noviny, and provides radio programmes and reviews, moderates public discussions and is involved in the Czech musical life as a critic and organizer of musical events. Additionally, she does German, French and English translation.

 Guitar, Jazz Ensembles

Patrik Hlavenka appeared on the Prague jazz scene for the first time with the group Simply Said, and after that with the quartet Power of Jazz, where he had already introduced himself not only as a guitarist but also as a composer. In 2004, he acquired a Master's degree at the University of Massachusetts, majoring in jazz composition and arranging. During his studies he had the opportunity to cooperate with musicians such as Ernie Watts, Dave Berkman, Adam Kolker and Bob Wiener. In the Czech Republic, he works with notable artists such as Jaromír Honzák, Jiří Slavíček, Leona Prokopcová and many others. In 2000, he participated in "Guitarfestival," organised by the magazine Muzikus, and he won in the category "Jazz and Blues Guitar". In 2003, he was selected to take part in the prestigious "Betty Carter Jazz Ahead" - residency for young jazz artists at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. He studied privately with Kurt Rosenwinkel and Ben Monder in New York City.

Composition, Jazz Piano, Jazz Ensembles

Pianist and composer BEATA HLAVENKOVÁ (born 1978), studied composition in classical music at the Janácek Conservatory in Ostrava. In 2004 she graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst USA, with a Master’s Degree in composition, jazz composition and arranging. In 2003, during her American studies, she was selected for The Betty Carter Jazz Ahead residential program for young composers and players in the Kennedy Centre, Washington DC. There she met Curtis Fuller, John Clayton and others.

At present, the composer has her own jazz music trio, working with leading players like drummer Martin Novák and bassist Rastislav Uhrík, as well as drummers Pavel Bady Zboril, Jirí Slavícek, Roman Vícha and bass players Tomáš Liška and Martin Lehký. In October 2005, she and the trio (R. Uhrik and R. Vicha) won the Jazz Junior prize 2005 for “Band of the Year, composition and arrangement.”

She has appeared in the “S’aight” project where she collaborated as composer with the guitarist and composer Patrik Hlavenka and, in 2004, released an album of the same title with Jaromír Honzák, Daniel Šoltis and Rostislav Fraš. It was one of the first albums to belong to the new wave of Czech original composition jazz records. She was also a founding member of the Jaromír Honzák trio “Face of the bass“, together with Roman Vícha, with whom she played during 2006 and 2007. In the spring of 2010, she participated in the recording of their album, which will be released in 2011 by Animal Music.

In the summer of 2005, she was a member of the winning ensemble “S’aight and Vertigo Connection” at the prestigious international music festival in Montreux, Switzerland. The ensemble continued to give occasional concerts under the name “Open Sextet”.

In December 2005, at their Czech premiere, as guests, they performed with the world’s leading jazz musicians including trumpeter Ingrid Jensen and saxophonist Rich Perry. In 2008, she again played with Rich Perry at the Jazz Fest in Brno and for an international radio transmission by EBU, and in the autumn of 2009 Rich toured with The Beata‘s Trio.

In 2006 she won an anonymous composer competition organized by Czech Radio, with her composition “Jazvecík vo hmle za stlpom” (sausage dog in the fog behind a pillar) or “Monday Meeting”. Her musical activities range beyond jazz and classical music. The focus of her activities in the field of pop music since 2005 has been collaboration with the enfant terrible of the local Czech scene, Lenka Dusilová, which resulted in a unique project called Eternal Seekers, and together with the band The Clarinet Factory, Beata was co-composer as well as arranger. Other major artists which she has worked, or is working with, include Iva Bittová, for whom she is currently arranging songs for symphony orchestra.This cooperation began in 2009. She has worked on two albums with country & western singer Vera Martinová, with whom she toured in 2006. Then there is her cooperation with personalities and groups such as Yvonne Sanchez, The Vertigo Quintet, Toxique, Ondrej Ruml, Ondrej Konrád, Josef Štepánek, Katka Šarközi, Triny, Benedikta, David Doružka, Leona Prokopcová and more.

The keynote album Joy for Joel (2009 Animal Music), was recorded in the U.S.A, where she again met Rich Perry and Ingrid Jensen, as well as the pedal steel guitarist Dave Easley and others. In the same year she went on tour with Ingrid Jensen, Jon Wikan and the leading Polish bassist Michal Baranski. In addition to very positive reviews, she received a nomination for the music award Andel (Angel).

She has also worked as a music teacher at The Jaroslav Ježek Conservatory and Higher Specialised School, and currently at The New York University in Prague and has participated on the curriculum for the first Czech university study of jazz music in the Czech Republic, begun at the Janacek Academy of Performing Arts in Brno, in 2010. On the Czech jazz scene, she is one of the most sought-after pianists. Besides the piano, which she prefers to play and collaborates with the Petrof makers – she often plays a Fender Rhodes piano.

http://www.beatahlavenkova.com/

Tomáš Hobzek (born 1980) began drumming sessions at Pilsen Conservatory. During his studies he became part of the Pilsen theater orchestra, where he gained experience through playing classical music, and also through playing with various student bands.

In 2004 he began attending Prague secondary post college of Jaroslav Ježek (Jazz major). Tomáš soon started to penetrate the jazz scene, as he became part of David Dorůžka Trio, Ondřej Pivec Organic Quartet, Vojtěch Procházka Trio, and others.

As a drummer in the David Dorůžka Trio Tomas took part in the International Getxo Jazz Festival in 2005. In the same year he won “Best Band” Award withthe Organic Quartet at Philips International Jazz Festival. A year after that he managed to get the Czech Musical Academy Award (Anděl) in the category Jazz and Blues with the CD Don’t Get Ideas recorded with Ondřej Pivec Organic Quartet.

Tomáš has performed in many International Jazz festivals with Organic Quartet, such as Cheltenham, Sibiu, Kishinev, Prague Spring, Jazz Fest Brno, Peking, Athens, or Greece, where the band was the sole representative of the Czech musical scene. In July of 2008 Organic Quartet performed in Getxo jazz festival, Spain, where the band earned an impressive audience’s prize as the Best Band (over 17.000 visitors and jazz fans were present during the festival).

For further experiences Tomáš headed to New York, where he took private lessons with drummer Kendrick Scott and Gregory Hutchinson. There, Tomáš recorded together with the hammond-organist Ondřej Pivec a CD Overseason – in cooperation with guitarist Jake Langley and saxophonist Joel Frahm. He also met pianist Dan Tepfer, who plays on Tomas’s first solo album “Stick It Out” (2009).

In the summer 2009, together with band Points, Tomas was awarded a first prize in Getxo jazz competition (Spain) and later they also earned the second prize in jazz contest in Hoeilaart (Belgium).

http://www.tomashobzek.com/

 Upright Bass

Bassist and composer Jaromír Honzák was born in Litoměřice in 1959. He began his musical studies on the piano at the age of six and on the double bass at age 14, and graduated from the Conservatory of Teplice in 1982. After completing two years of then - mandatory military service - luckily spent in a prominent army band in Prague - Honzák quickly became a versatile and sought-after bassist, performing with virtually all of the major figures of the Czech jazz scene. Honzák co-founded Naima group, which fast became one of the most significant Czech jazz groups of the 1980s. Throughout the years he has appeared with international artists such as Art Farmer, Phil Wilson, Don Friedman, Alan Praskin, Giovanni Bassso, Amina Claudine Myers and Victor Lewis.

He has performed at a number of international festivals including Sea Jazz Helsinki, Ingolstadter Jazztage, Levekusener Jazztage, the Jazz Jambore Warsaw, and the Montreal International Jazz Festival. In 1989, Honzák was awarded both Berklee and Fulbright scholarships to attend the Berklee College of Music in Boston. There he studied with Bruce Gertz, Hal Crook, John La Porta and Rick Peckham, and performed with fellow students Jorge Rossy, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Roy Hargrove, Mark Turne nad Chris Cheek. Since returning to the Czech Republic in 1990, Honzák has documented his work as a bandleader, bassist and composer in three recordings: "Getting There Together" (1995, PJ Music); "Earth Life"(2000, Cube Metier); "Present Pas" has been praised as "one of the most significant events in the history of Czech jazz” (Harmonie Magazine).

Honzák collaborates closely with a range of international artists, including Kuba Stankiewicz, Piotr Baron, Michal Tokaj, Lukasz Zyta, Christian Rover, Jorge Rossy and David Dorůžka. He performs extensively in Poland where his friend Kuba Stankiewicz has introduced him to many of leading musicians of the Polish scene.

Honzák ´s recordings and compositions have been awarded numerous prizes in the Czech Republic and abroad. His CDs "Present Past" and "Earth Life" were each awarded the Harmonie Magazine prize for the best Czech jazz recording of 2000 and 2003. His tune "Constant Struggle" is featured in the European Realbook (Sher Music).

Presently, Honzák leads his two bands - Jaromír Honzák Quartet and trio Face of the Bass. He works frequently with the young guitarists Petr Zelenka and David Dorůžka. He is also a member of the Eben Brothers band and collaborates with free improvised theatre group Vizita.

http://www.jaromirhonzak.com/

Currently a Marketing & Media Coach, Hana Huntova has worked in marketing and communication since 1994. She has held various positions in advertising agencies in the Czech Republic and abroad, including MindShare and Saatchi & Saatchi, followed by working in marketing and communications functions in Unilever.  In 2007, she established an independent coaching and training company, whose clients have included Unilever, Czech Television, Millward Brown, Union of Publishers, Google, and others.

A graduate of the Czech University of Agriculture in Prague, Huntova is an active member of the Czech Association of Advertisers. She was one of the judges of the European Effie in Berlin in 2002 and has been the judge of the Czech Effie for the past 6 years. 

A full time teacher of Czech for foreigners, Monika Janouchová has taught at Accent Language School and Charles Unversity while also instructing students privately. Janouchová holds a Master’s Degree in pedagogy from the Hradec Kralové Teaching College. 

Jan Jirák is Deputy Chair of the Centre for Media Studies at Charles University, as well as a faculty member of the Department of Media Studies, where he has taught Czech communications and mass media since 1992. An author and co-author of books and articles on the role of media and communication in contemporary society, media literacy and media education, Jirák is also the former chairman of the Czech Television Council and the former editor of KMIT Quarterly. Previously a translator of English-language movies for Czech TV Broadcasting, he still translates English language novels (e.g., Updike, Vonnegut, Frazer) and academic books on media (e.g., McQuail, Meyrowitz, Thompson). Additionally, he is co-author of the project of media education for Czech primary and secondary schools.

Jirák holds an M.A. degree from Charles University in English and Czech language and literature and has a Ph.D. from Charles University in media studies. He wrote his Ph.D. thesis on the development of media in post-transformational societies. In 2002, he became an associate professor, writing his professor´s thesis on the concept of media literacy. In 2008, he became a full-time professor in media studies. He holds professional affiliations with the Syndicate of Journalists of the Czech Republic, the Czech Union of Translators, and the Czech Circle for Modern Philology. 

Vocal Instruction

Professor at Prague Music Academy - HAMU, Soprano soloist at Prague States Opera, guest artist at Berlin States Opera, Simper’s Opera in Dresden, and Amsterdam’s Opera, Jana Jonášová has attended festivals in Prague, Salzburg, Edinburgh, Madrid, Moscow, and Japan. Her opera roles include Queen of the Night, Gilda, Zerbinetta, and Konstance; she has won awards such as Artist of the year 1985, UNESCO Award - 1968, Wiener Flötenuhr - 1970, Professor of the year in Voice class - 1999, and Masaryk Academy of Science Award – 2004.

Zdeněk Kirschner is the former Vice-president of the Academy (College) of Music Arts. Since the early 1990’s, Kirschner has taught photography courses in the Department of Journalism at Charles University’s Faculty of Social Sciences; he has also taught at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague since 1983. In 1999, he earned his full professorship there.

Kirschner has a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Charles University, which he earned in 1952. He has curated and co-curated dozens of photographic and literary exhibitions in Prague and abroad. From 1952 to 1968, he worked as curator, archivist and head curator of the Literary and Exhibition Department at the Prague Museum of Czech Literature. There, he worked on the first Franz Kafka exhibition in 1964. From 1970 to 1992, he acted as head curator in the Department of Prints and Photography at the Prague Museum of Decorative Arts, where he curated several international exhibitions. 

Dr. Tomáš Klvaňa currently works as the executive director of the Zdeněk Bakala Non-Profit Programs where, besides other projects, he has overseen the establishment of the Aspen Institute partner in the Czech Republic. He serves as the vice-president of the Aspen Institute Prague Board of Directors. In 2003 Dr. Klvaňa worked as the press secretary and policy adviser for the President of the Czech Republic, and in 2007-08 as a Special Government Communications Envoy for the Missile Defense Program. In 2001-03 Dr. Klvaňa was deputy editor-in-chief of Hospodářské noviny (a leading Czech daily newspaper), and in 2000-01 a senior international affairs commentator for the Czech daily newspaper Mladá fronta Dnes.

In 2011 he published his first novel, Marina. A Russian Story, in Czech (Marina. Ruský příběh. Paseka Publishing, Prague, 2011). Dr. Klvaňa serves on the Board of Directors of Economia Publishing, a leading Czech media organization, and also on the Board of the Harvard Club of Prague,  and is a member of Czech Euroatlantic Council. In 2012 he was awarded the Distinguished Leadership Award for Internationals from the University of Minnesota, where he earned his Ph.D. in Speech Communication in 1997. He also holds an M.A. in Journalism from the Charles University in Prague (1992). In 2003 he was a Shorenstein Fellow at the Harvard University Kennedy School. Dr. Klvaňa publishes a blog in Czech and analyses of international relations for leading Czech media. He frequently participates in international conferences. In 2005-06 and 2008-11 he worked in several managerial positions for British American Tobacco in Prague, Hamburg, London and Brussels.

Since 2004, Evžen Kočenda has been a Professor of Economics at CERGE, Charles University in Prague and, since 2002, Citigroup Endowment Professor. He is also a Research Fellow of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan Business School and a Research Affiliate of CEPR, London.

Kočenda graduated in 1985 from the Prague School of Economics in International Trade Management. He received his M.A. in Economics from the University of Toledo, Ohio, in 1992, and completed his graduate studies in Economics at the University of Houston, Texas, earning a Ph.D. degree in 1996. From 1996 to 1998, he was Deputy Director for Research at CERGE and the Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.

In 1997, Kočenda was the Economic Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. From 1998 to 1999, he was a member of the Scientific Council of the Ministry of Transport and Communications and since 1999 has been a member of the CERGE Scientific Council. He is a member of the editorial board of the journal Finance a uver and the Journal of Comparative Economics. 

Inez Koeltzch teaches Modern Jewish History at NYU Prague 

1959 born on August 9 in Prague, Czech Republic

1972 started to study clarinet (prof. J. Stárek)

1979 took up tenor saxophone and theory of jazz improvisation at the Prague Jazz Conservatory under the tutelage of distinguished jazz vibe player and teacher Karel Velebný.

1980 started playing with professional jazz groups and big bands

1981 two years of service in the Army Arts Ensemble; joined up with several other young jazz musicians to form Naima - 3 times the winner of Best European Jazz Group Award

1983 teamed up with Emil Viklický Quartet - a prominent jazz group in the Czech Republic

1984 took a job as a musician on a cruise ship in the U.S.; recorded with Joe Newman and Lou Blackburn

1985-8 touring Europe with Naima and Emil Viklický Quartet; worked as a studio musician playing various styles of music

1993-5 taught jazz improvisation and interpretation at the Prague Jazz Conservatory

1995 founded his own group, concentrating on original compositions influenced by various styles of contemporary music, transcending the boundaries of jazz

1996 started working in the Committee of the Czech Jazz Society - an organization dedicated to support the nationwide advancement of jazz (tutoring and education, information services, contests) 

1998 elected as president of the Czech Jazz Society; composed various kinds of music (jazz, film and TV music, etc.)
1999 working with his own quartet, recorded numerous studio sessions (with EBU Big Band in Canada, with F. Wesley)

2000 released CD "Twinkle" with František Kop Quartet

2011 started teaching at jazz department of Prague Music Academy (HAMU)

http://www.kopjazz.cz

Michal Kubát is a member of the Department of Russian and East-European Studies at Charles University in Prague and a part-time member of the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Western Bohemian University in Pilsen.

Kubát received both his B.A. and M.A. in political science from the Department of Political Studies at Charles University. He successfully completed his doctoral thesis at Charles University's Institue of International Studies in 2005.

A member of the editorial board of a number of periodicals, including Political Science Review, Kubát has published numerous titles on the politics of transition in the former Soviet bloc. 

  Bassoon

Jaroslav Kubita studied at the Prague Conservatory under J. Rezác and at the Academy of Performing Arts under F. Herman and J. Seidl. He is the winner of international competitions in bassoon at the Prague Spring Festival (1991) and in Wloszakowice, Poland (1988); a laureate of the C. M. von Weber Competition in Munich (1987) and the IDRS Competition in Manchester, England (1989). A former solo bassoonist of the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra in Prague, he has been a member of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra since 1996. He devotes himself to solo and chamber performances.

He has released the CD 18th-Century Czech Bassoon Concerti (Vanhal, Pichl, Schimpke); performed at prominent festivals (e.g., the Prague Spring Festival); and collaborated with leading orchestras such as the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Prague Symphony Orchestra, Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra in Prague, Dortmunder Philharmoniker and Jenaer Philharmoniker. He regularly records for Czech Radio. In addition to the Czech Wind Harmony, he is a member of the chamber associations In Modo Camerale (www.musica.cz/imc) and the Prague Baroque Ensemble.

Zdeněk Kühn is an Associate Professor at Charles University Law School, where he teaches legal theory, criminal law and human rights. He is also a lecturer for the Judicial Academy of the Czech Republic, which further educates Czech judges, and has been co-director of the international seminars “Constitutionalism: Europe and the United States in Comparative Perspective,” IUC Dubrovnik, since 2004. He graduated from the Charles University Law School in 1997 and received his Ph.D. degree there in 2001. He holds a Master of Laws (LL.M.) and Science Juridical Doctor (S.J.D.) degrees from the University of Michigan Law School. 

He has been awarded several prizes including the Bolzano Prize and the Hessel Yntema Prize, Berkeley, California, for the best article by a scholar under 40 (published in vol. 52 of the American Journal of Comp. Law). In addition to publishing widely in the Czech Republic and abroad, Professor Kühn is also a legal practitioner (he passed the Bar Exam at the Czech Chamber of Advocates in 2000). He has served as a legal expert on Czech and Slovak law before US courts, for example in 2003 for the plaintiff in the case In Re: Assicurazioni Generali S.p.A. Holocaust Insurance Litigation (United States District Court Southern District of New York), one of the most important recent class action suits in the United States. In Fall 2007, he was appointed by the Czech government to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to serve as an ad hoc justice in a highly profiled set of cases relating to rent control in the Czech Republic; In December 2007, he was appointed a Justice of the Supreme Administrative Court of the Czech Republic. 

Oboe

Jurij Likin, a Czech oboist of Byelorussian origin, studied at the Byelorussian Conservatory in Minsk with legendary professor Boris Nichkov. He later worked with famous french professor and soloist Maurice Bourgue in Paris (1992-1993) and in Prague at the Prague Mozart Academy. He also used to work with Nicholas Daniel, Ives Poucel, Michael Faust, Jess Read, André Cazalet, Wolker Altmann, Hatto Beyerle. He was the solo oboe of the Byelorussian Philharmonic in Minsk, Petersburg Symphony, Minsk Chamber Orchestra. A winner of several national and international competitions (Concertino Praga 1984, Baltic republics-Byerorussia-Moldova International Competition 1986, USSR National Competition 1987), Jurij moved to Prague in 1994, first taking up the position of Solo/Principal Oboe in the Prague Philharmonia before accepting the same position in the Prague Symphony Orchestra, a post he holds to date. As a soloist and chamber music player he is invited very often to the music festivals in Europe, Asia and North America. As a member of the Prague Wind Quintet he has won the prestigious annual French critics´ prize Choc 1999 of the “La Monde de la Musique” for the recording of chamber music by Leos Janacek. He is teaching oboe, oboe reed making and oboe repairing master-classes in France, Great Britain, Japan, Russia and USA regularly. Since 2009 Jurij Likin is a professor of oboe at the Janacek Academy of Music and Performing Arts, Brno. Jurij Likin playes Fossati-Paris oboe model 20th Anniversary.

Born October 1979 in Rakovnik, Czech Republic.
2000 - studies the double-bass at the Conservatorium of Jaroslav Ježek in Prague, under the leadership of prof. Petr Kořínek and soon became a presence on the local jazz scene, appearing with an array of musicians at the city's most important jazz clubs and festivals.
2003 - takes part in music project of Milan Svoboda’s Kontraband, following the tradition of Prague Bigband
2004 - finishes studies at the Conservatorium and at the same time is accepted at the Prague Jazz College of Jaroslav Ježek, studies under prof. Jaromír Honzák
2005 - with David Dorůžka’s trio, Tomáš takes part in the finale of the International Jazz Festival in Getxo, Spain
2006 – he played in a duo with vibraphonist Radek Krampl at prestigious iternational jazz festival "Sofia Jazz Peak" in Bulgaria.
2007- cooperation with Matej Benko’s trio (the trio later grows into a quintet in 2007, and in February 2009 publishes a CD called Time Against Us)
2007 - takes part in International Jazz Workshop in Polish Leszno,  taught by Polish leading jazz artists as Michal Tokaj, Piotr Baron, Piotr Wojtasik, Michal Baranski and Lukasz Zyta. Tomas Liska was awarded as the best bass player there.
2008 - works together with a great performer of South-American music, Mara Topferova,  touring around Europe.
2008 - he participated on the masterclass workshop in Italy with the best american players lika Joey DeFrancesco, Benny Golson, Bobby Durham, Jimmy Cobb, Alberto Marsico and Buster Williams. Also at this workshop is Tomáš granted the award for the best double-bassist of the workshop.
2009 - quartet Points was awarded on 22nd. years Competition of Jazz Standards in Siedlce (Poland).
2009 - was awarded like a  WINNER  of the international cometition of soloists in Łomża (Poland). Tomáš Liška was only one, who plays solo - without rhythm section!
2009 - with the jazz band called Points WON a very prestigious international jazz competition at Spanish Getxo, as the first Czech jazz band to do so in the whole Czech jazz history! Points reached the finale whilst being chosen from over 80 other competitors from Europe, the Middle East and Russia. The fact that Points won at Getxo ensured their presence at another great jazz festivals.
2009 - was awarded like The Best Bass Player of prestigious international competition in Hoeilaart, Belgium. Quartet Points got the second price of the bands and trumpetist Miroslav Hloucal got price of The Best Soloist.
2009 - releasing first solo CD called Invisible World. Tomas Liska invited to the recording session David Doruzka (acoustic guitar), Daniele di Bonaventura (bandoneon) and guests Marta Topferova (vocal) and Tomas Reindl (tablas).
2010 - Czech Jazz Society has announced the results of its Best Album of the Year poll. The jury, compromised of over sixty musicians, jazz club owners, record company producers, publicists and managers chose the SECOND position for CD „Invisible World“, recorded by Tomas Liska's feat. guitarist David Doruzka and bandoneonist Daniele di Bonaventura (IT).
2010 – the album Invisible World has been nominated in the Czech Grammy music awards - Andel 2009.
2010 - Tours the US several times during the last two years as a member of the band "Druha trava".
2011 - records the albums "Marzipan from Toledo" & "Shuttle To Bethlehem" with the band "Druha Trava" to critical acclaim & a very positive response. The album "Marzipan" receives the "Angel Awards" (Czech grammy) in 2011.
2012 - releases the album "Daily Specials" with American guitarist Steve Walsh.
2012 - masters program study in a prestigious Berlin University  - Jazz Institut Berlin, under the direction of renowned American teachers Greg Cohen and John Hollenbeck.

During the international jazz performances, Tomáš appears at various jazz festivals, for example in Bulgary, France, Italy, Belgium, Hungary, Russia, South African Republic, Morocco, Spain, Germany, Austria, Poland, England, USA, Mexico and others.

On the musical scene, Tomáš cooperated with musicians as David Dorůžka, Steve Walsh (USA), Beata Hlavenková, Cyrille Oswald (NL), Marta Topferova (USA), Lenka Dusilová, Eternal Seekers, Yvonne Sanchez, Pražský Bigband, Najponk, Dan Tepfer (USA), Bryson Kern (USA), Sam Sadigursky (USA), Mark Aanderud (MEX/USA), Hernan Hecht (ARG) and many others.

Since 2000, Zdeněk Lukeš, an art historian and architect, has been a professor at the Faculty of Architecture at Technical University Liberec, where he was Dean from 2000 to 2003. He has also been employed as an expert in the National Heritage Department at the Office of the President of the Czech Republic for over 15 years. 

Lukes earned his degree at the Faculty of Architecture of the Czech Technical University in Prague. From 1980 to1990, he worked at Prague's National Museum of Technology. He is the author of many books and articles published both in the Czech Republic and abroad. 

Since 1992, Andrzej Magala has worked at the Czech Academy of Sciences. He graduated from the Philosophical Faculty of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland in 1976, specializing in Polish language and the theory and history of Polish literature. He studied as a translator in Warsaw for two years before attending Adam Michiewicz University for another four semesters, this time studying sociology and Czech studies. From 1976 to 1992 he worked at the Polish Institute in Prague, teaching Polish to foreigners. He also taught at the Polish Embassy’s school in Prague, at the Polish School for children from mixed marriages, and gave individual Polish lessons to adults. In 2006 he completed his Ph.D. in comparative linguistics at Ostrava University. 

Jan Macháček is a journalist and musician currently working as a commentator for both the daily newspaper Hospodarske noviny and the weekly Respekt, to which he also occasionally contributes articles and interviews. Mr. Macháček also has a blog - Audit Jana Macháčka and provides analysis for Czech public radio and television. Previously, he lectured on Politics and the Economics of Transformation at the Anglo American University in Prague.During communism in the 1980s, Mr. Macháček was involved in underground culture and samizdat publishing. He was a member of the famous underground band The Plastic People of the Universe as a guitar player and later joined the band Garage, with whom he still plays. In the 1980s, he signed Charter 77 and was involved in various dissident activities. He studied at the Prague School of Economics in the first half of the 1980s, but due to political reasons could not finish.After the revolution in 1989, Mr. Macháček coordinated people from theunderground publishing world to create the first independent media outlet in the country, the weekly Respekt (originally titled Information Service). His work for Respekt  frequently earned him awards for both his investigative and analytical writing. In 2000, he effectively became Respekt's deputy editor in chief. Additionally, Mr. Macháček has also been a fellow of the National Forum Foundation in Washington (1994) and the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan (1998).Mr. Macháček is also a member of the board of Transparency International Czech Republic, serves as a member of the board of Vaclav Havel's Library and this year has been once again awarded the best journalist in the country 

(Ferdinand Peroutka Award). 

Michal March, poet and translator, directs the Prague Writers' Festival (www.pwf.cz). A graduate of history at Columbia College, he is the author of five volumes of poetry, translated into seven languages. He co-translated Zbigniew Herbert's Barbarian in the Garden and Gojko Djogo'sOvid in Tomis and edited Child of Europe: The Penguin Anthology of East European Poetry and The Vintage Book of Contemporary Eastern European Writing. In London, he founded The Covent Garden Readings at the Arts Theatre, the East European Forum at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and presented Child of Europe at the National Theatre. 

The beginnings of V. Mareš’s artistic career are connected with the Plzen Conservatory, at which he started studying the clarinet in the class of professor J.Hlaváč in 1972. Having graduated from the Academy of Music Arts (AMU) in Prague, he became the first clarinet of the FOK Prague Symphony Orchestra, a member of the Prague Wind Quintet, a renowned solo clarinetist and he is professor at the Academy of Music Arts. He has shown his exceptional musical talent at various international competitions, mostly winning first prizes, for example at Concertino Praga, the K.Kurpinski competition in Poland, Markneurkierchen in Germany, and at the Prague Spring festival.

He was also very successful at competitions in Paris and Rome, where he advanced to the narrow four-member finals. Today his recordings are renowned and sought-after both at home and abroad (the CD of the Year 1996 in Paris, Grammy Asia 1997 - Soul, Grammy classic 1993 - Prague).

As a solo player or member of the  Prague wind quintet Mr. Mareš has appeared on the concert platforms of a number of countries, including the United States, Japan and England.

Pianist and musicologist Ourania Menelaou was born in Nicosia, Cyprus. She graduated from the Prague Conservatory in the class of V. Topinka in 1996 and continued her studies at Charles University in Prague, from which she received her Master’s degree in Musicology. In 2003, Menelaou was awarded a Teaching Assistantship from the University of Iowa. There, she studied piano with Professor Uriel Tsachor and got her postgraduate degree on Piano Performance in 2006.

Menelaou has performed extensively, both as a soloist as well as a pianist in chamber music recitals. She holds the diploma Laureat de l’ Academie de Lausanne and has been invited to participate in Music Festivals in the U.S., where she has performed with internationally recognized musicians including Peter Zazofsky, Doriot Anthony Dwyer, Terry King, Annette-Barbara Vogel and others. Ourania has given recitals in Greece, Cyprus, Germany, Norway, Iceland and the U.S. She has recorded for the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC), the Icelanding Radio, KNPR in Las Vegas and for Český Rozhlas.

As a musicologist Menelaou has been researching and studying the piano music of the 19th and 20th century as well as the music of the Czech composer Leoš Janáček.  During her studies in the U.S., she gave several lecture–recitals on Janáček’s piano music and on the Czech piano music of the 20th century. Currently she is studying the work of the Greek composer Nikos Skalkottas (1904 – 1949). 

Bill Miller completed his Ph.D. at the University of Dallas’ Institute of Philosophic Studies in 2006, an interdisciplinary program in philosophy, politics, and literature. His teaching career has involved stints in Kyrgyzstan (1996) and Czech Republic (2006-2009).

Miller worked for 7 years at the Hendricks Leadership Center (1998-2005) in Dallas, Texas, before beginning work in 2005 as a organizational development consultant for Premiere Global Services (NYSE: PGI), a global communications solutions company. He has worked closely with PGS’s chief people officer in designing a development model and program for the company’s employees. He and his wife, Lisa, have resided in Prague since 2006. Their two boys (ages 9 and 12) are avid ice hockey players. 

Photography - Assistant 

Since 2006, the Czech composer Luboš Mrkvička (born Dec 18, 1978) has been a lecturer at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (HAMU), where he teaches composition and lectures courses focused on compositional techniques of  20th and 21st century music.

He has taught composition at  New York University Prague since 2006. After three years of studies at the Prague Conservatoire with professor Bohuslav Řehoř, he studied with professor Milan Slavický and professor Marek Kopelent at HAMU, where he received his Ph.D. in 2009. Besides many workshops and compositional courses, he completed a scholarship at the Royal College of Music in London with professor David Sawer.

Currently Petr Mucha serves as an Interfaith Dialogue Project coordinator for the Forum 2000 Foundation, which organizes annual international conferences under the auspices of Václav Havel. He also works as a lecturer in various educational institutions.

After completing his graduate studies in Geography and Religious Studies at Charles University in 1994, Mucha served as a director of a nonprofit educational organization and taught at universities in Prague and Hradec Králové. During that period he studied sociology and philosophy and undertook internships at various institutions in USA, Great Britain, France and Malta. Later, throughout his doctoral studies at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University he spent several years in Canada as a visiting scholar and lecturer at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.

During communism in the late 1980s, Mucha became actively involved in underground activities and in the student revolt during the Velvet Revolution in 1989. 

Karel B. Müller currently teaches courses on civil society and political sociology as a professor at the University of Economics in Prague, and he also lectures at Charles University. From 2004-05 he was a visiting lecturer and scholar at the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University in the United Kingdom.

Müller earned a MA in philosophy (1996) and a Ph.D. in political science (2002) from Charles University. His publication Češi a občanská společnost (Czechs and Civil Society), published in 2002, has become a core reading for political science educational programs at several universities in the Czech Republic. He is a member of the Czech Political Science Association, the American Political Science Association, the Helsinki Committee in the Czech Republic and is on the board of the Institute for Economic and Political Culture, a Prague-based think tank. 

Richard Müller currently holds position as Scholar at the Institute of the Czech Literature, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. In 2011, he was a Visiting Professor at Brown University, Providence, RI.

Richard Müller earned his MA in Czech and English Studies and his Ph.D. in Czech and Comparative Literature at Charles University. In 2005, he earned a scholarship at the University of Konstanz, Germany.

In 2012, he published A Dictionary of Contemporary Literary Theory, which was nominated for the Book of the Year by Lidové noviny. The areas of Richard Müller’s research and expertise include literary theory, modern Czech and English literature and the correlation of literary and historical context and writing. He is also a translator (Roald Dahl’s short stories, Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks).

In addition to his academic profession, Richard Müller is a classically trained pianist.

Since September 2000, Salim Murad has been a lecturer in Political Science at the Pedagogical Faculty of the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice. He teaches courses on the History of Political Thought, the Basics of Political Science, the Political System of the Czech Republic, the Principles of Multicultural Tolerance, and the Integration of Europe. He is also finishing his research as a Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science at Comenius University in Bratislava.

Murad graduated from the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University in Brno with a degree in Political Science. From April to June 2003, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Refugee Studies Centre, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford. His reseach there was the Issue of Asylum in the Czech Republic: From the Fall of Communism to Access to the EU. He also studied at the Institute of Political Science, Copenhagen University in 2004.

His research interests include the current development of migration flows from the perspective of the Czech Republic in uniting Europe and the European Union and its impact on domestic policy development during the transition to democracy and the consolidation of democracy since 1989. Currently he also works on projects for UNHCR Czech Republic, the Human Rights Education Centre of Charles University in Prague. 

Currently the editor of the Orientace supplement of the Czech daily newspaper Lidove noviny, Tomáš Němeček graduated with an M.A. in media and mass communications from Charles University in 1996, and in 2003 he earned a law degree from the Charles University Law Faculty. From 1993 to 1995 he worked as a reporter and columnist for the weekly Czech magazine Mladý svět. In 1995 he started writing for the weekly newspaper Respekt, where he was editor-in-chief from 2003 to 2005. Later he was the chief commentator of the Czech business daily Hospodarske noviny (2005-2009). 

Vít Nermut completed his studies at Charles University in Prague (MA in musicology) and at the University of Music in Trossingen, Germany (MA in Baroque violin). In 1999-2000 he took part in Charles University exchange programme as a scholar at the Jazz Department of the University of New Orleans (LA).

Since 1999 he has been mainly active in the fields of music education and performance. As a musician he has worked with numerous ensembles, his musical range running from classical music and jazz to music for film and theater (e.g. Original Prague Syncopated Orchestra, L‘Orchestra Barocca della Mitteleuropa, Neue Hofkapelle Müchen, Armonico Tributo Austria, Instrumenta Musica, Capella Regia, Musica Florea, Ensemble Inégal, Societas Incognitorum, Musica Figuralis, The Czech Ensemble Baroque, Paul Novotny Trio, Golem Theatre).

Simon North currently teaches survey courses for the University of New York in Prague. He has worked as an art history lecturer for numerous American study abroad programs in Prague (SIT, NYU, CIEE, Lexia), and was Academic Director of the SIT program “Arts and Social Change” in 1997.

North received his M.A. in Fine Art from the University of Edinburgh. Following post-graduate studies in painting at the Edinburgh College of Art, he worked as an independent artist, drawing teacher and freelance lecturer/guide at the National Galleries of Scotland. From 1988 to 1993 he taught English in France, the UK, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. He was a tutor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Art and Architecture at the Central European University from 1992-96 (where he was also responsible for library acquisitions) until the university closed in Prague. He continues to paint on a freelance basis, and is currently focusing on landscape painting. 

Jiří Novák has been a freelance teacher of English and Czech for foreigners since 1990; he has been teaching at NYU since the fall of 2001. 

Novák graduated from Charles University in 1989 with a Masters degree in Czech and English language and literature, and a specialization in pedagogy. Besides tutoring, in the 1990´s he also translated a number of films and TV series (including 12 episodes of The Simpsons) for Czech TV. 

Monika MacDonagh Pajerová is chairperson of the civic association YES for Europe (www.anoproevropu.cz). She studied modern philology at the Philosophical Faculty of Charles University in Prague, earning her doctorate there  in 1991. In 1987, she attended scholarship program at the Linkoping University in Sweden.

From 1988 to 1989, she lead the Student Press and Information Centre in Prague. During the Velvet Revolution she was the spokesperson for the University Strike Committee.

In 1990, Pajerová entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Czech Republic and became cultural attaché at the Czech Embassy in Paris until 1994. From1994 to 1998, she served as Administrator of the Culture Committee in the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. In 1998, she served as head and spokesperson of the Press Dept. of the Ministry of  Foreign Affairs in Prague.

From 1999 to 2000, Pajerová was the author and moderator of Shall We Get On? and Studio Europe, respectively television and radio programs about the EU.  

She has published two books, Students Wrote a Revolution with M. Benda, P. Dobrovský and Š. Pánek, and, in connection with a CE project, New Ideas in Science and Society (1997).  Pajerová has two children with her Irish husband, Peter MacDonagh. She speaks Czech, English, French, German, Russian and Swedish. 

Vocal Instruction

Hana Peckova was born in Prague. She graduated from the Conservatory and the Academy of Arts in Prague, where she took classes from professor Bela Chalabalova, a former student of the famous Italian singer Totti dal Monte.

Peckova took several lectures with Professor Lisiziana in Weimar during her studies at the Conservatory and the Academy. She is a laureate of the Prague Mozart Competition at Bertramka and of the International Opera Singers Contest BRT TV in Belgium. 

She had performed the majority of her roles at the State Opera theatre in Prague, the F.X.Salda Theater in Liberec, the J.K. Tyla Theater in Plzen, and at the Ceske Budejovice, Opava and Bratislava theaters. As a guest she has performed at Czech, Moravian and Slovak theaters.

Presently, she is in concert cooperation with the Italian tenor Gaetano Bardini and the Ukrainian bass singer Jurij Kruglov. Meanwi1e, she has held several concerts in the following countries: Hungary, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, former Yugoslavia, France and others.

http://www.tomashobzek.com/

Currently Director ofNYU Prague, Jiří Pehe was Director of the Political Department of Czech President Václav Havel from September 1997 to May 1999. He serves as Chairman of the Program Committee of the Forum 2000 Foundation that organizes annual international conferences under Havel’s auspices.

From 1995 to 1997, Pehe was Director of Analysis and Research Department at the Open Media Research Institute in Prague. Between 1988 and 1995, he first worked as an analyst of Central European affairs and later as Director of Central European Research at the Research Institute of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich, Germany. From 1985 to 1988, Pehe was Director of East European Studies at Freedom House in New York.

Pehe studied law and philosophy at Charles University in Prague from 1974 to 1978. In 1980, he received a doctorate in law (JUDr.) from the School of Law of Charles University. He fled Czechoslovakia in 1981 and eventually settled in the U.S.A. In 1985 he graduated from the School of International Affairs at Columbia University in New York.

Pehe has written hundreds of articles and analytical studies on developments in Eastern Europe for American, Czech, and German periodicals and academic journals. He is a regular contributor to various Czech newspapers and regularly comments on political developments for Czech Television and Radio. He co-authored and edited a book titled The Prague Spring: A Mixed Legacy, which was published by Freedom House in 1988. In 2002, his book Vytunelovaná demokracie was published by Academia, Prague. Pehe has also contributed essays and chapters to various other books. He teaches at Charles University and NYU Prague.

Magdaléna Platzová was born in Prague in 1972. After finishing secondary school, she studied at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. and at Brockwood Park School in England, a school based on the teachings of the Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti. In 1992, she returned to Prague to study Philosophy at Charles University, receiving a Master´s degree in 1998. After that she worked as a free-lance actress, journalist and translator until 2001, when she became editor of the weekly journal Literarni noviny (Literary News). Since January 2008, she has worked as a literary and cultural editor at the weekly journal Respekt based in Prague.

Platzová is the author of three stage plays, as well as of poems, numerous interviews, reports, literary reviews and articles. She also published three books of fiction, the fourth - a collection of short stories - is coming out in Semptember 2008. Her last novel Aaronův skok (Aaron´s Dive, Torst, 2006) is inspired by the life of the Austrian born Jewish painter and art teacher Friedl Dicker-Brandeis who is best known for her work with Jewish children in the Ghetto of Terezin in 1942-44. 

Milada Polišenská is Vice-President for Educational Development and Chair of the School of International Relations and Diplomacy at the New Anglo-American College in Prague (www.aac.edu).  She earned her Ph.D. in History from Charles University in Prague in 1987 and her Docentship from Palacky University in Olomouc in 2006.  She was a Fulbright Scholar at George Washington University in 1992 and in 1995 was named a Woodrow Wilson Fellow in the Cold War International History Project in Washington, D.C. She has taught as a Visiting Professor in the United States (at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and at Texas Tech University) and at universities in Taiwan.

The author of a number of articles and monographs in diplomatic history and Central and Eastern European historical  issues, Polišenská's most recent book is on Czechoslovaks deported to the Gulag camps in the Soviet Union and  Czechoslovak diplomacy, 1945-1953. 

 Miroslav Pudlák (www.musica.cz/pudlak) is a Czech composer and musicologist who lectures at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, where he teaches music theory and analysis. He is currently the director of the Czech Music Information Centre, a research institution that promotes Czech contemporary music (www.musica.cz). Under his leadership, the center has developed into a non-profit modern arts management facility. It publishes two music magazines (in English and Czech), music directories, books and CDs, as well as running an information service on Czech music and managing archives and databases. Pudlák also works with MoEns, another contemporary music group (www.musica.cz/moens), as a conductor and composer.

Professor Pudlák's research concentrates on contemporary and 20th century Czech music. He has published a monograph and many articles on this topic.  In 1985 he founded the contemporary music ensemble Agon, for which he was the artistic director until 1991. He is the author of many orchestral and chamber compositions, and he has also written music for theatre performances and electro-acoustic music. His music has been performed at contemporary music festivals in the USA, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Poland, Finland, Luxembourg, Ukraine, Mongolia and France and has appeared on the label Arta Records.

Michal Rataj (born 1975) studied musicology at Charles University in Prague and composition at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (with prof. Ivan Kurz and prof. Milan Slavický), where he earned his Ph.D. in 2005 in the field of electroacoustic music and radioart. Since 2006 he is assistant professor and runs electroacoustic music theory and composition classes there.

Michal Rataj was awarded scholarschips to study musicology and composition at the Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, UK in 1995, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin in 1998 and Universität der Künste in Berlin, 2002. In 2007 he was awarded a Fulbright Grant to guide research in the field of electroacoustic music and real-time sound applications at CNMAT, University of California Berkeley, CA.

Michal Rataj also works as radio art producer at Czech Radio, Prague where he curates a program slot Radioatelier and website rAdioCUSTICA for contemporary radioart activities. Since 2012 he has been vice-chair of the EBU Ars Acustica producers group and teaches composition at the NYU in Prague and other art schools. He has written music for number of TV productions and movies as well as large amount of radio plays & features and theatre and dance performances.

Michal Rataj composes mainly electroacoustic and chamber or orchestral instrumental music and gives performances throughout Europe and broadcasts worldwide. Recently he has been active as real-time performer of his acousmatic music and he gives sound performances alone or with different music partners.

www.michalrataj.com

www.radioart.cz

Eric Rosenzveig, (b. Montreal, Canada) is an artist, curator music producer and educator.

Currently the Department Chair of FAMU's Center of Audiovisual Studies (CAS) he teaches courses on open narrative structures, new media histories, sound for moving image and practical workshops on contemporary art making. At NYU he teaches electro-acoustic music composition. In addition to his own art practice, he is director of the Liz Gerring Dance Company in New York City.

His past art projects include a series of consumer electronics devices as artworks (FUNTV and others); playListNetWork, an online system for collaborative media making and public display that also included  artwork of the same name (2001-2004); the Appearance Machine, an artificial life system that streamed continual animated media from garbage collected in his neighbourhood (1998-2002; winner of Vida 3.0 prizes for artificial life artworks and The Telefim Canada Prize at Images Festival Toronto for best film and video in Festival, exhibited at The Kitchen and The New Museum, NYC and other venues internationally).

In 2001-2002 he was artistic and managing director of the sound art gallery Engine 27 in New York. 
His music productions have included Pharoah Sanders & Mahmoud Guinia, The Trance of Seven Colors, (recorded in Morocco, winner Downbeat magazine Beyond Category album of the year).

In 1992 he produced the series Musiques et Traditions du Monde a series of 17 free public concerts for the City of Montreal´s 350th anniversary.

He has lived in Prague since 2007.

Janusz Salamon is a philosopher specializing in moral and political theory and cross-cultural philosophy (esp. global ethics). He is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University in Prague. He studied at University of London (B.A.), University of Oxford (M.Phil.) and Jagiellonian University in Cracow (Ph.D.). He joined the faculty of New York University Prague in 2011. He serves as Co-Editor (with Dr. Anna Abram, University of London) of the Bloomsbury Studies in Global Ethics, a book series published by Bloomsbury Publishing London, and is a member of Editorial Committee of the Journal of East-West Thought published by the International Association for East-West Studies. He is also an Associate Member of the John Hick Centre for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Birmingham and the Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal for Philosophy of Religion.

Since 1995, Ilona Floriánová Šaršonová has specialized in teaching Czech for foreigners, both privately and for the Calix Language School and NYU Prague. She studied Czech language and literature at the Pedagogical faculty of Charles University. After graduating with her Masters degree, Šaršonová taught at Jesinova Elementary school for five years and spent one year instructing high school sophomores in art. 

 Lukáš Sedláček is currently President of the Oxford & Cambridge Alumni Society Czech Republic and Executive Director of the European Leadership & Academic Instiute (ELAI). Previously he worked in the Government of the Czech Republic in the Department for Informing on European Affairs, in the Ministry of Defence as Policy Analyst for Cubic Defense Applications Group, in the think-tank Yes for Europe as Project Manager and at Telefónica O2 as the Chief EU Projects Coordinator and Senior Business Development Manager. He was also a Co-Founder and Spokesperson of a civic iniciative Yes for Svejnar during the last Czech presidential campaign.  

Sedláček holds degrees MPhil. in International Relations from the University of Cambridge and PhDr. in European Studiues from the Charles University. Previously he studied International and Area Studies, Comparative Religion and Jewish Studies at the Charles University and International Relations at the Otago University in New Zealand.

Vilem Semerak currently teaches Intro to Economic Issues at NYU Prague 

Jaroslava Sitkancova teaches 21-st Century Theatremakers at NYU Prague 

Ivo Šlosarčík is a lecturer of European and international law at the Jean Monnet Center of Excellence, Charles University; he is also the deputy-head of the department. Czech correspondent for the European Public Law Journal,  Šlosarčík is also a member of the advisory board to the European Constitution at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is a founding member of the Insititute for European Policy EUROPEUM, where he is active as director for research.

Slosarčík holds degrees from Charles University’s Faculty of Law and Central European University in Budapest. His major areas of interests are legal issues of European integration, judicial and police co-operation in the EU and Czech reform of the civil service and judiciary. 

Milan Šmíd is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism of the Charles University’s Faculty of Social Sciences, where he has taught courses on television history and developments and foreign media since 1991. He earned his M.A. from the School of Social Sciences and Journalism at Charles University in 1970. Prior to joining the University in 1990, he worked for the former Czechoslovak Television station in several capacities, lastly in the Department of Foreign Programs. From 1990 to 1991, he was a member of an expert group organized by the federal government for the drafting the Czech Broadcasting Law. He wrote several studies on broadcasting legislation commissioned by the Czech parliament (on the regulation of broadcasting in Europe, on license fees, etc.). He has authored numerous studies and monographs on the transformation of the Czech electronic media, in Czech, German and English (for details seehttp://tucnak.fsv.cuni.cz/~smid/cveng.html). 

Vlad Sobell is a leading Russia and Eastern Europe analyst and commentator with more than 35 years’ experience. He began his career at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich in the mid-1980s as an analyst focused on the former Soviet bloc. From 1990 onwards he worked for the Economist Intelligence Unit in London – the research arm of the world-renowned weekly newspaper The Economist – as editor for Russia and Eastern Europe. Thereafter he spent some 15 years working in the City of London as a senior economist and analyst for Russia and Eastern Europe. Throughout his career he has published extensively and given numerous media interviews.

Sobell obtained his Ph.D. from St Antony’s College, Oxford for a dissertation on economic integration in the Soviet bloc. He also holds a Master’s degree from the University of Essex, UK, and a Bachelor’s degree in Russian studies from the University of Liverpool, UK.

Sobell was born in Prague but left for the West in 1969, shortly after the Soviet invasion. He returned to live and work in Prague in early 2012.

Dinah Spritzer is the central and eastern Europe editor for the New York-based Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a news wire service founded in 1917 that reaches 1 million people through 110 newspapers, magazines and web sites. She covers security, political, religious and social issues in ten countries. Dinah is also a regular contributor to the New York Times, providing insights on the Central European cultural scene. Previously Dinah was news editor for four years at The Prague Post, Central Europe's leading English-language weekly. She upgraded the political coverage of the newspaper and as a result became a columnist for several Czech dailies. Prior to arriving in Prague, Dinah worked as the Europe editor for Travel Weekly, the largest travel business weekly in the United States, where she was also a regular contributor to the magazine Conde Nast Traveler and Fodor's Travel Guides. Dinah believes that freelancing for a variety of media outlets keeps a journalist on her toes: She has written on  topics from combating obesity to the imperialist nature of Santa Claus for the New York Times, USA Today, The San Francisco Chronicle, Womens' E-news, The Canadian Medical Association Journal, The Independent of London, The Irish Examiner, The Jerusalem Post, and even OK! Magazine and USWeekly. She also contributes regularly to Grazia and the Sunday Mirror in the United Kingdom.

  Violin, chamber ensembles

Adéla Štajnochrová graduated from the Prague Conservatory in the class of  Dana Vlachová (1998), and then continued her studies at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, in the class of prof. Petr Messiereur. She got her posgraduate degree at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where she studied violin with Krzysztof Smietana and Baroque violin with Rachel Podger. In 1994 she was a finalist of the Beethoven International Violin Competition (CZ) and in 2002 semifinalist of the Gesselschaft Competition held in Munich. She took part in many international master classes in the USA, Austria and France held by L. Kaplan, S. Ashkenazi, I. Levin, and J. Holloway. As a member of ArteMiss Piano Trio, she focuses mainly on chamber music but performs also as a soloist with orchestras, gives recitals and cooperates with early music ensembles (The Sixteen, Musica Florea, Collegium Marianum, Collegium 1704). In 2012 she finished her doctorate studies at the Academy of Performing Art.

Tatiana Štíhelová has been teaching Russian language courses at NYU Prague since 2000. She was born in Moscow and received her M.A. first class honors degree from the Philological Faculty of Moscow State Pedagogical University. She then held the post of Russian Lector for 9 terms at Oxford University. Styrkas also earned her Master of Letters Degree from the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages at Oxford University, United Kingdom.

Vanda Thorne teaches and researches on the themes of mass mentality, social movements, and collective civil action in totalitarian and post-totalitarian regimes. Other interests include gender and politics in Central Europe, ideology and propaganda, and theories of cultural resistance. She received her Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Pittsburgh. She also holds an M.A. in English and American Literature from Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic, and an M.A. in Gender and Culture from Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. 

Tomáš Trampota is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Media Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University; there, and at Vyšší odborná škola publicistiky, he has taught courses on Sociology of News, Media and Society, Media Content Analysis, and Analysis of Media. He earned his Ph.D. degree in media studies in 2005 and later worked as an executive producer for Czech television (from 1992 to 1996) and as editor of the specialized weekly Marketing and Media (from 2003 to 2004).

Trampota regularly publishes on Czech media in the Czech press and has authored the monography Zpravodajství (News) and several academic studies and analysis. He frequently participates in international conferences on media and occasionally translates media literature from English to Czech (e.g., Meyrowitz).           

Hana Ulmanová is a senior lecturer in American literature at Charles University. She studied Czech and English and American language and literature both in Olomouc and in Prague, where she earned her Ph.D. in 1995. She also received an M.A. in American civilization from George Washington University (1992).

Ulmanová´s chief areas of expertise are contemporary American literature, American Jewish literature and literature of the American South. In those fields, she has offered several advanced classes and supervised numerous M.A. theses and Ph.D. dissertations. In the academic year 1997-98, she was a Fulbright scholar at NYU in New York City, researching contemporary prose, and she attended quite a few conferences and workshops (such as Salzburg Seminars or CEU summer program in Budapest).

Ulmanová is a regular contributor to MFDnes, the most widely read Czech newspaper, and the prestigious political and cultural weekly Respekt. She has written close to 100 book reviews and essays and conducted interviews with leading American literary figures (e.g., Arthur Miller, William Styron, Edward Albee and Gore Vidal). She is a translator of short stories by Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Eudora Welty, Arthur Miller, Bernard Malamud and Isaac B. Singer and of Nicole Krauss´s The History of Love and Ambrose Bierce´s The Devil´s Dictionary. She has also translated poetry (Emily Dickinson) and drama (David Ives). In addition to Czech and English, she speaks Russian, German, French, Spanish and elementary Yiddish and Hebrew. 

Jan Urban, who has recenly worked on several projects in Iraq training journalists and working on building reconciliation measures through the reconstruction of cultural heritage sites, was one of the leading dissidents under the communist regime. In 1974, he graduated with a degree in history and philosophy from Charles University. From then until 1989, Urban, forbidden by the communists to continue his academic career, worked as a schoolteacher and a manual laborer. He was one of the founders of the Eastern European Information Agency, a dissident network. He also worked with underground newspapers and as a reporter for Radio Free Europe and the British Broadcasting Company. In November 1989, he helped found the Civic Forum, the movement that led to the eventual overthrow of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, and was placed in charge of its logistics and management. In 1990, Urban was elected as the Civic Forum's spokesperson and leader. He led the Civic Forum to its victory in the first free democratic elections in June 1990.

He resigned from all political positions one day after announcing the electoral defeat of Communism and returned to pursue his career in journalism. He studied post-conflict societies in Central America and won two international human rights awards from Humanitas, San Francisco, in 1991 and Centro Demos in San Salvador in 1995. Urban also served as a war correspondent in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1993 through 1996 and was the publisher of Transitions magazine from 1997 to 1999.

More recently, he has made two documentary films, one of them on the Kosovo conflict. He is the author of three books, two of them on the war in Bosnia and one on a major corruption case in the Czech Republic. He is currently working on a book of interviews with the founder of the People in Need Foundation, Simon Panek. Last semester, Urban brought Joan Baez to his NYU class, which, he says, was great fun.  

Since 1993, Otto M. Urban has been teaching courses on Modern Czech Art for numerous international university programs in Prague, including New York University, American University, CIEE, and ECES. 

Urban studied art history and aesthetics at Charles University from 1985-1990; in 2000, he earned his Ph.D. in the same field. From 1994 to 1998, he taught art history at Charles University, and subsequently worked as a researcher at the Institute of Art History in Prague. He has also taught courses on art history in the U.S.: at the University of Texas at Austin in 1999, 2001, 2003 and 2005, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007 (he has cooperated with the SAIC since 2001).

Since 1990, he has focused his studies on Central European symbolism, specifically the question of decadence. He was curator of a number of exhibitions (including František Kobliha in 1990, Moderní revue in 1995,and Karel Hlaváček in 1998, 2003). He also co-curated exhibitions of Alfred Kubin (2003) and Arnold Schönberg (2004). His recent project (2007) was a major exhibition In Morbid Colours, Art and the Idea of Decadence in the Bohemian Lands, 1880 – 1914.

Urban's articles about Decadence and Symbolism have been published in magazines in the Czech Republic and abroad and his texts have been included in a number of anthologies and publications. He published his first monograph on Karel Hlaváček (2002), one of the main figures of Czech Decadence. His latest book is In Morbid Colours, Art and the Idea of Decadence in the Bohemian Lands, 1880 – 1914 (2007, English version). He is currently working on a monograph about painter and graphic artist František Kobliha (2008) and on an exhibition and a book, Eroticism in Art in the Bohemian Lands (2011). 

Tomáš Vachuda is a practicing attorney, admitted in New York and the Czech Republic, and the managing partner of Vachuda & Co., a Prague based business consultancy and law firm specializing in international transactions and corporate law.  He is also Vice President of the Anglo-American University and Senior Lecturer in Business Law at the John H. Carey II School of Law at the Anglo-American University.

Although born in Prague, Vachuda grew up and studied in the United States, earning undergraduate degrees from the University of Washington (history) and the Jackson School of International Studies (Russian and East European Studies), a masters from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, an MBA from Chapman University and a JD from the Yale Law School.  During his studies he managed a political polling operation for the Democratic Party in Seattle and spent nine summers in Yellowstone National Park conducting research on geysers and hot springs. 

Vachuda practiced law for most of the 1990s with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York City, subsequently served as the Managing Consultant of the Central European Advisory Group, and in 2005 founded Vachuda & Co. 

Jiří Valenta (1955) studied double bass with Miloslav Gajdoš in Kroměříž and at Prague Conservatoire with František Pošta. Further musical education he adquired at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague where he graduated with the assistance of Zdeněk Benda. In 1978 Jiří Valenta got the first prize at the František Gregora Double Bass Competition in Kroměříž. For a short time he played with the Prague Symphony Orchestra and since 1985 he has been member of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. He cofounded important chamber ensembles Basetti Boemi (unique double bass quartet, with which he took part in numerous concerts and made many TV and radio recordings) and philharmonic ensemble Virtuosi di basso (8 violoncellos and 2 double basses), with which he presented himself not only in the Czech Republic but also in Germany and Japan.

Since 1995 he has been teaching at the Prague Conservatoire; since 2006 as the head of the double bass department. Frequently, he is invited to be the jury member at various interpretation competitions and since 2001 he has regularly taught at the International Double Bass Courses in Brno, where he also plays solo. In 2005 he presented himself within the cycle “Prague Conservatoire Professors” with the solo recital in Rudolfinum in Prague. In 2008 he took part in the Third World Double Bass Festival in Wroclaw in Poland, in 2013 in Banská Bystrica in Slovakia both as the solo player and the teacher at the international master classes.He held masterclasses in Tokyo,Seoul and Melbourne.

With Jana Holmanová he recorded Adolf Míšek´s sonatas for the Czech Radio. On the ocassion of 200th anniversary of the foundation of Prague Conservatoire he recorded CD “200 hundred years of the Czech Double Bass” in cooperation with well known pianist Martin Kasík.

Gaëlle Vassogne is an assistant professor of German Studies at the Université Stendhal in Grenoble, France, where she specializes in German history, business German and Jewish history in Central and Eastern Europe. She has taught at the Universität Heidelberg, the Université Paris 3 – Sorbonne Nouvelle and the Institut d’Etudes Politiques. She studied German Studies at the Ecole Normale Supérieure and at the Université Paris 3 – Sorbonne Nouvelle and Business at H.E.C. In 2004, she received her Ph.D. from the Université Paris 3 – Sorbonne Nouvelle. She will be publishing her book "Max Brod und Prag: Identität und Vermittlung" in 2009 (Niemeyer, Tübingen) and is currently working on a project on Prague Zionism. 

Lenka Vlasakova teaches Czech language at NYU Prague 

Cello, Chamber ensembles

Alžběta Vlčková graduated from the Prague Conservatory in the class of J. Páleníček (1993), and at the Musical Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague in the class of Prof. M. Petráš (2002). In 1992, she was the finalist in the International Violoncello Competition Beethoven‘s Hradec. In 1994, she won the second prize in the International B. Martinů competition in Semmering (Austria). She participated in international master classes held by A. May, Z. Nelsova, St. Apolín, T. Kühne and studied with Prof. Roland Pidoux during her half-year stay at the Conservatoire Nationale Superier in Paris. She is a member of ArteMiss Trio. She often cooperates with orchestras as a soloist or chamber music player.

  Piano

Pianist and composer Martin Vojtíšek (born 1950) studied piano performance at the Academy of Music in Prague as a pupil of Ilona Štěpánová-Kurzová. He has played for audiences at a large number of concerts in various European countries including France (Paris), Spain (Sevilla and Córdoba), Italy, Germany, Greece, Holland (Rotterdam) and Poland.

Besides the numerous recordings he has made for radio stations he also appears on CD recordings of works by Chopin (Sonatas, Ballades, Scherzos, Waltzes and Nocturnes), Liszt (Sonata in B minor) and of his own compositions (Sonata and the Prelude, Chorale and Toccata). He has made the first complete recording of Vítězslav Novák’s piano works. The first CD, featuring Songs on Winter Nights, Reminiscences and Youth, was released in 1998 (Supraphon/label Panton 81 9007), the second one,featuring Sonata eroica, Barcarolles, At Dusk, Serenades and Bagatelles, was released in 2001 (Supraphon SU 3575). Since 1974 he has taught at the Prague Conservatory, and he has directed courses at conservatories in the Netherlands, Greece and Switzerland.

Compositions: Concerto for piano and orchestra, Concerto for alto saxophone and string orchestra, The Gardener – 3 songs for soprano and orchestra set by R. Tagore lyrics, Trio for flute, cello and piano, Sonata for violin and piano, Sonata for flute and piano, Three Pieces for clarinet and piano, Sonata for piano, Prelude, Chorale and Toccata for piano, Hommage a Bach and 7 Bagatelles for guitar.

Tomáš Vrba graduated from Charles University with a Ph.D. in philosophy and worked from 1974 to 1977 as a social worker. In 1977, he was a signatory of the Charter 77 human-rights declaration. Through the 80s he worked as an editor of samizdat literature and from November 1989 through the spring of 1990, he was a member of the Občanské Forum (Civic Forum).  Editor-in-Chief of the Lettre Internationale quarterly (Czech and Slovak edition) from 1990 to 1995, Vrba founded and was president of the AEJ-Association of European Journalists/Czech section in 1993. From 1997 until 2000, he was the Editor-in Chief of the monthly magazine Nová Přítomnost/The New Presence; more recently, from 2002 to 2004, he was the Association of European Journalist international Vice President and, until 2007, the Chair of the Czech News Agency Council (ČTK). He is currently President of the Board of Directors at Theater Archa and the Forum 2000 Foundation.  

Currently the Head of the EU Office, Česká spořitelna/ Erste Bank in Prague, Petr Zahradnik was born 1965 in Prague, where he graduated from the Prague School of Economics (Finance) in 1987. He went on to study at Columbia University, New York (Economic policy management) in 1993, and the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium in 1993 (European studies). 

Zahradnik undertook economic research for the World Bank, Institute for European and International Studies (Luxembourg), and the Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Austria) between 1993 – 1995. In the Czech Republic, he has worked as a macroeconomic analyst and Chief Economist and Head of Research for brokerage companies, Patria Finance and Conseq Finance. Between 1995 and 1998, he was External Advisor to the President of the Czech Republic for Economic Affairs. Since 2003, he has been Head of the EU Office at Česká spořitelna/ Erste Bank. 

Zahradník is a member of the Scientific Board at the Prague School of Economics. He has published a book on European integration (C.H. Beck, 2003), several chapters for other books, several tens of articles in impact specialized journals, and several hundreds of articles in general newspapers in the Czech Republic as well as abroad. He has also several thousands of quotations in Czech and foreign media, including Reuters, Bloomberg, Financial Times, or New York Times. 

Josef Zieleniec, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs (1993-1997), has been a Senator since 2000 and a Member of the European Parliament since 2004.  He was also a member of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, and of the Executive Board of CERGE.

Zieleniec attended the School of Nuclear Technology in Prague, the Prague School of Economics, and earned his Ph.D. in Economics at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. Prior to 1989, Zieleniec worked at the Research Institute of Technology and Economics and later went on to join the Institute of Economics of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences.

In the early 1980s, Zieleniec founded and became the first Director of the Centre for Economic Research and Graduate Education (CERGE) at Charles University in Prague. At that time Zieleniec was appointed associate professor of economics and was a member of the Scientific Council of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University. He is a co-founder of the Civic Democratic Party and worked as the party Deputy Chairman beginning in 1991. Following the 1992 elections, Zieleniec was appointed Minister of International Relations of the Czech Republic. After the dissolution of Czechoslovakia on January 1, 1993, he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Independent Czech Republic. Following the 1996 elections, he served as Deputy Prime Minister as well as Minister of Foreign Affairs.