AGATHE JERIE

Born in Bern and studied under Eva Zurbrügg, an assistant of Prof.M. Rostal. Diploma in 1974 Academy of Music in Bern. Afterwards she went to Prague and studied under Prof. Ivan Straus at the Academy of Music in Prague (Czech). Graduated from Masterclasses under Riccardo Odnoposoff, Wolfgang Schneiderhahn. Thereafter studied in Basel under Hansheinz Schneeberger. She won several prizes from the Kiefer Hablitzel Foundation, played as soloist and chamber musician in Switzerland and abroad. As mother of four teaching began to be more important for her and so she graduated from the comprehensive Suzuki Training in Germany and became also a Teacher Trainer which allows her to instruct new teachers in this method. Now she is teaching in Switzerland, and gave courses in Germany, Czechia, Hungary, Italy, and Cuba. She also headed the International Orchestra Academy in the summertime in Czechia from 1996-2005. Currently she manages the International Summer school in Interlaken, a music camp for several instruments (violin, guitar, cello) for Suzuki children. In addition there is a course for teachers. With her Suzuki Group she performs in Switzerland but also abroad.

JANA HRABAŇOVÁ

Jana Hrabaňová graduated at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. During her studies, she became a co-founder of the Škampa Quartet, in which she worked as a second player for almost twenty years. Then she concentrated on teaching and when in 2012 she attended a concert of Swiss Suzuki violinists from Agathe Jerie's class, she was so enchanted by the performance that she decided to spread this method in the Czech Republic. Between 2013 and 2017, she became certified to teach all five levels of the Suzuki Violin Method in Switzerland and the same year she co-founded the Czech Suzuki Association with Martina Pudelová, a platform for teachers, parents and students who share similar ideas about teaching children to play a musical instrument.

S. Suzuki: "Where love is deep, much will be accomplished.”

Martina Pudelová

Martina Pudelová studied at the Janáček Conservatory in Ostrava and at Palacký University in Olomouc. She first encountered the Suzuki method live during a year long study stay in the USA. She was surprised to observe violinists who - although violin was often not their main subject of study - had excellent technique. Moreover, they were incredibly quick to learn new pieces and play them by heart. Most of them started violin lessons at a young age, according to Suzuki. Martina Pudelová then attended several Suzuki violin and viola lessons and was impressed with the method. After arriving in the Czech Republic she met Jana Hrabaňová and came to Prague to see her lessons. Soon after, she went to Switzerland to join Agathe Jerie on a violin course and in 2017 she and Jana Hrabaňová founded the Czech Suzuki Association. Martina Pudelová is also a Suzuki Early Childhood Education teacher for children from 0-3 years old.

"Apart from the litres of coffee I drink, working with children gives me an incredible energy boost."

Jiří Sládek

Jiří Sládek is a graduate of the Conservatory in Kroměříž. He started as a member of the Zlín Philharmonic Orchestra and from 1993 to 1999 he was a member of the Cairo International Symphony Orchestra. From 2000 to 2003 he was also involved in folk music as a member of the Czech Song and Dance Ensemble. Currently, in addition to teaching, he is active in various chamber groups and is a permanent member of Ondřej Havelka's Melody Makers Big Band.

Sára Zemenová

Sára Zemanová is a student of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague under MgA. Pavel Kudelásek. She is also an active player in the Barocco Sempre Giovane ensemble and, in addition to taking care of her two years old daughter, she teaches several young violinists. She came to the Suzuki method of education almost by accident, and she is all the more enthusiastic about the Level 2 course, which she completed in 2021.

ANNA DOLEČKOVÁ

Anna studied at conservatories across the Czech Republic. She has lived for many years in Guadeloupe, France and Haiti. Since 2016, she has been collaborating with the Gymnasium and Music School of Prague on several projects. In 2017, she first encountered the Suzuki method at a workshop at the Dobeška Studio, Prague and was very interested in it. Between 2019 and 2021, she completed the first and second levels of the Suzuki Violin Method with Agathe Jerie, with the support and sharing of Jana Hrabaňová's experience. Since 2019 she has been teaching this method at the Dobeška Studio, Prague.

LENKA MACHÁČKOVÁ

Lenka studied teaching at PdF MU in Brno and Baroque violin at the Faculty of Music there. She got acquainted with the Suzuki method in Norway during a visit to an art school in Bergen and was completely captivated by it. Since then she was looking for a place to learn this way of teaching until she found the great Jana Hrabaňová and Suzuki Studio in Prague. She has completed Level 2. Her youngest pupil is 3.5 years old and the oldest is 82 years old. She works as a violin and cello teacher and at the same time as deputy director at the Art School in Bystřice nad Pernštejnem. Lenka has been leading the Kyjovský String Orchestra for 20 years, plays in the Cappella Allegra String Quartet and sings in the Alter Ego Chamber Choir. As a volunteer she also leads music therapy courses in social institutions. Besides music, her greatest love is her two-year-old grandson Martínek, who loves playing the violin, so - we'll see.

"Music is prayer, prayer is healing, healing is giving, giving is living, living is making music." (Hopi)

Agnieszka Ściążko-Krejbich

Agnieszka holds a Master's degree in violin performance from the Music Academy in Wroclaw (Poland), having previously studied in London and Prague. She won an audition for the European Union Youth Orchestra in 2015. In the Czech Republic, she was a member of the Pilsen Philharmonic Orchestra and also a member of the PKF Prague Philharmonia Orchestral Academy. In 2021, she completed the Level 1 Suzuki Method course with Agathe Jerie, and now is continuing with Anna Podhajska.

Lucia Fulka Kopsová

Lucia studied at the Bratislava Conservatory first as an exceptional student, then as a regular student in the class of Doc. Mgr. Art Mária Karlíková, ArtD. Since 2005 she continued her studies at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno. In 2010 under the guidance of prof. MgA. František Novotný, she successfully completed her Master's studies. She attended a number of master classes, e.g. with J. Pazdera, V. Hudeček, F. Novotný, F. Török, J. Čižmarovič, B. Kotmel, E. Perényi, S. Yaroshevich, B. Matoušek, M. Grabarczyk, E. Zienkowski and P. Šporcl.
Already as a student of the conservatory she achieved a number of competitive successes. In 2000 she won the first prize at the Dolný Kubín International Violin Competition, in 2001 she received an honourable mention at the Kocian Violin Competition and two years later she became the winner of the Josef Muzika International Violin Competition in Nová Paka. As a student of JAMU she received 2nd prize at the International Beethoven's Hradec Competition in 2006, 2nd prize at the International L. Janáček Competition in 2007 and the "Prize for the Best Interpretation of the Violin Concerto by A. Dvořák" and in 2009 3rd prize at the International Beethoven's Hradec Competition. In 2013 she won 2nd prize at the Bohuslav Martinů Foundation Competition. In April 2006 she participated in the European Youth Chamber Orchestra project in Graz, Austria, led by violinist René Staar, a member of the Vienna Philharmonic. In summer 2006 she toured the European Union as a member of the EU Youth Orchestra, conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy and Andrei Boreyko. She worked with the Bratislava Conservatory Chamber Choir, with whom she toured the USA. Lucia has made recordings for SRo (recordings of concerts from Slovak Radio, recordings for the New Talent competition), CT (Terra Musica), Czech Radio Vltava and Radio Proglas. Since 2007 she has been active in the chamber duo Teres with guitarist Tomáš Hoňek. Since 2011 she has been a member of the PKF - Prague Philharmonia orchestra, and since 2013 a member of Trio Clavio.

Zuzana Adorján

Zuzana Adorján has been playing the cello since the age of six. She graduated from the Jan Neruda Gymnasium - studying music - in the class of professor Škampa and then from the Prague Conservatory and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague in the class of professor M. Petráš. During a study stay in Dresden at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber she studied in the class of Prof. M. Bräutigam. For several years she was the leader of the cello group in the Czech Student Orchestra (among others at the Young Euro Classic Festival in Berlin) and then in the 2011/12 season she became a member of the PKF - Prague Philharmonia Orchestral Academy. She participated in master classes with Jiří Bárta (cello) and M. Lapšanský (chamber music). Since 2007, she has been teaching cello at the A. Voborský School of Music in Prague 4. She is also a member of several chamber ensembles, in which she performs music of various styles. With Martin Písařík & Akustik they have released a CD of their own songs.

Petra Matějová

As a pianist she has been accompanying students of the Suzuki Violin School for almost 10 years. In the last six years, she has also got to know the Suzuki method through teaching her two sons, who are pupils of Jana Hrabaňová. In her professional life, she is mostly devoted to music of the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries and so-called historically informed performance, playing the hammer piano (fortepiano, pianoforte, hammerklavier) - i.e. the piano in its various historical forms. She is a member of Trio Unitas and collaborates with other ensembles. She has recorded several solo CDs and numerous radio recordings, and teaches the hammered dulcimer at the Music Academy in Krakow. She studied piano at the Prague Conservatory and the Academy of Performing Arts, and hammered dulcimer at the Paris Conservatory, where she also received a doctorate in the same subject in 2014 in collaboration with the Sorbonne and the JAMU.

Vít Novotný

Vít Novotný was born in 1982 in Prague. In his childhood he successfully avoided systematic lessons at the Art School and found his way to a deeper interest in music thanks to the composer Jakub Nygrýn, to whom he attended private piano and harmony lessons as a teenager. He gained a close and lasting relationship with choral singing thanks to Hana Vašátková, the choirmaster of the children's choir Klíček, of which Vít was a member. As a graduate of the Faculty of Education at Charles University in Prague in English Language, Music Education and Choirmastering (in the class of Marek Valášek), he remained faithful to these subjects even after graduation: he is a teacher of English and Music Education at the Přírodní Škola Gymnasium in Prague. As a choirmaster, he has about twenty years of experience with the chamber mixed choirs Imbus, OktOpus and Omnibus. For three summers he served as choirmaster of the Czech Music Youth Summer Camp. Since 2014 he has been the principal choral director of the national choir Bohemiachor.
He and his wife Jitka have three daughters. Two of them play the violin - how else than by the Suzuki method! - in Jiří Sládek's class.

KLÁRA, BÁRA AND ŠTĚPÁN KOTMELOVI

The Kotmel siblings will provide a music workshop for our little ones at this year's Summer Music Suzuki School. They will practice a little theory and sight reading with the bigger ones!