Charles Richard-Hamelin is an excellent Canadian pianist known for his exceptional skills and emotional performances. His success at the Fryderyk Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw in 2015, where he won a silver medal and the Krystian Zimerman Prize for the best performance of the Chopin Sonata, propelled him into the international piano spotlight.

Marek Jerie is a leading cellist of his generation and professor at the University of Music in Lucerne, Switzerland. A former pupil of Pablo Casals, André Navarro, Mstislav Rostropovich and Antonín Kohout, he is also a member of the legendary Guarneri Trio.

At the Prague concert, which is also the prologue of the upcoming Bohuslav Martinů Days festival, they will perform Ludwig van Beethoven's culminating Sonata for Cello and Piano No 3. This will be followed by Bohuslav Martinů's late work Variations on a Slovak Folk Song, written in 1959, the last year of the composer's life. All four of Fryderyk Chopin's Scherzos, which are among his most daring and interesting works, are undoubtedly a very attractive part of the programme, and the audience will have the rare opportunity to hear successively the Scherzo No. 1 Op. 20, composed at the very beginning of Chopin's emigration; then two brilliant concertante Scherzo No. 2 Op. 31 and No. 3 Op. 39 from his Paris years, full of contrasting emotions; and finally Scherzo No. 4 Op. 54, a mysteriously ambiguous work from Chopin's last creative period. The evening's programme concludes with the Mazurka, composed by Bohuslav Martinů in 1942 and described as a ‘Tribute to Paderewski’.

The concert is a prologue to the 31st Bohuslav Martinů Days 2025 festival and is held in cooperation with the Concert Art 2.5 project organised by the Society of Concert Artists.