���غ���

The historical-performance ensemble Collegium 1704 has been at the forefront of the early music scene in Eastern Europe since its founding in 2005. The group has championed the music of composers Jan Dismas Zelenka and Josef Mysliveček and is named for the year in which Zelenka came on the scene in Prague, but it has also given notable performances of music by Bach, Handel, and other composers from Western Europe.

The moving force behind Collegium 1704 and its associated vocal group, Collegium Vocale 1704, is harpsichordist Václav Luks, who was born in 1970 and studied at the Pilsen Conservatory and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague before becoming part of the first Czech generation to travel freely to the West. He undertook research and performance studies in early music at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland and then concertized in Europe and the Americas before joining the Akademie für Alte Musik in Berlin as a horn player. In 1996, Collegium 1704 released the album Zelenka: Composizione per Orchestra on the Supraphon label. Luks returned to Prague in 2005 and set about transforming Collegium 1704, which had existed as a student chamber group since 1991, into a world-class historical performance ensemble. The group re-emerged with the Bach-Prague-2005 Project, a set of performances of Bach's vocal works.

Collegium 1704 and Collegium Vocale 1704, which have consistently attracted top-notch instrumental and vocal soloists, began to attract critical attention with performances in France of Zelenka's Missa votiva, ZWV 18, a work that, like Beethoven's String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132, was written as a prayer of thanksgiving for recovery from illness. These performances led to the group's signing by the Zig-Zag Territoires label, for which they recorded another album of Zelenka before moving to the Accent label in the early 2010s. Among the highlights of its tenure there was a recording of Bach's Mass in B minor, BWV 232, in 2013. Luks, who has remained an enthusiastic player of small-ensemble music, issued a set of Zelenka ensemble sonatas with players from Collegium 1704 on Accent in 2017. The group released several more albums of music by Bach, Handel, and Zelenka before moving to the Château de Versailles label for the album Rameau: Les Boréades in 2022. Collegium 1704 returned to Accent in 2022 with a historically oriented performance of Smetana's Má Vlast. ~ James Manheim

The founder of the ensembles Collegium 1704 and Collegium Vocale 1704, keyboardist and conductor Václav Luks has been a pioneer in the historical performance of Baroque music in the Czech Republic. He has helped reshape the Baroque repertory through his performances of music by the composers Jan Dismas Zelenka and Josef Myslivecek.

Luks was born in Rakovnik in what was then Czechoslovakia on November 14, 1970. His first instrument was the French horn, which he studied at the Pilsen Conservatory. He added harpsichord to his studies when he went on for advanced study at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, but he continued to perform on the horn as a soloist with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. Luks became more deeply involved with early music as a student at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland (where he has continued to collaborate with the Baroque ensemble La Cetra), and liberalized travel policies after the fall of the Iron Curtain allowed him to tour as far afield as Mexico, Japan, and the U.S. He also taught at the Academy of Performing Arts and the Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Hochschule für Musik in Leipzig.

Returning to Prague in 2005, he revitalized the ensemble Collegium 1704, which he had founded as a student in 1991, organized it along the lines of historical performance, and added a choir, Collegium Vocale 1704. He quickly organized the Bach-Prague-2005 festival, presenting major choral works by Bach in concert. In 2008, he and Collegium 1704 released an album of works by the little-known Henrico Albicastro. That same year, Luks founded the Prague-Dresden Music Bridge concerts, which later evolved into a major concert series focusing on the art of singing in the Baroque era. With Collegium 1704, he has recorded for Pan Classics, Zig Zag Territoires, and Supraphon, among others, often delving into unknown repertory from Prague in the 18th century. In 2018, Luks and Collegium 1704 backed violinist Leila Schayegh in a recording of the violin concertos of Myslivecek. In 2020, the combined forces of Collegium 1704 and Collegium Vocale 1704 under Luks' direction released a recording of Zelenka's Missa 1724, and Luks also led Collegium 1704 that year on a recording of Rameau's opera Les Boréades for the Château de Versailles label. In 2022, Luks and Collegium 1704 returned to Accent with a historically oriented performance of Smetana's Má Vlast. ~ James Manheim