Václav Luks

conductor

Václav Luks
© Petra Hajsk

Early music specialist Václav Luks completed his three year Artist‘s Residence at the Chamber Academy in Potsdam in 2025. He has been appearing as a guest conductor with the Händel & Haydn Society in Boston since 2021.  In 2005 he founded the Prague Baroque Orchestra Collegium 1704 and Collegium Vocale 1704 who have since appeared with him at renowned festivals and famous European venues including ones in Berlin, Vienna, Salzburg, Brussels, Amsterdam, Warsaw and London, with singers including Magdalena Kožená, Philippe Jaroussky and Andreas Scholl. Collegium 1704 recordings have received accolades including the Trophées, a Diapason d'Or and the German Recording Critics's Prize. They performed Smetana's Má vlast at the opening concert of the 2021 Prague Spring Festival. Although he works intensively with Collegium 1704, Václav Luks also works with other renowned orchestras specialising in early music, including the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Nederlands' Bachvereniging, the Academy for Early Music Berlin, Concerto Köln and the La Cetra Barockorchester in Basel, which has all helped to revive interest in the works of the Czech composers Jan Dismas Zelenka and Josef Mysliveček and strengthen Czech-German cultural relations by rediscovering musical traditions shared by both countries. The Collegium 1704, under Václav Luks, recorded the music for Petr Václav's documentary Zpověď zapomenutého (Confession of a Forgotten Man) and Il Boemo, a film about Josef Mysliveček's life. Václav Luks studied at the Conservatoire in Pilsen, the Academy of Arts in Prague and completed his training specialising in early music at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. He has worked with modern orchestras too, including the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, and the SWR and hr symphony orchestras. He conducted the Orchestre National de France, with whom he has worked regularly since 2019, in a concert to raise money to restore Notre Dame to her former glory. The French radio station France Musique dedicated five episodes of their Grands interprètes de la musique classique series to him. He was awarded the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2022 for his cultural achievements.