Fall Concert Program Notes: Svoboda’s never-before-heard Symphony No. 2

Posted on November 3, 2016

Portland Youth Philharmonic will present Portland’s Czech-American composer Tomáš Svoboda’s never-before-heard Symphony No. 2 at the Fall Concert on Saturday, November 12, 2016. Click here for more information and to reserve your seats today!

Tomáš Svoboda was born in 1939 in Paris, France. He entered the Prague Music Conservatory in 1953 at the age of 14. In 1957, his Symphony No. 1 was premiered by the FOK Prague Symphonic Orchestra.

In the early 1960s, Tomáš and Jana Demartini met in Prague through participating in a folk music group. They dated for a year before Tomáš wrote his Symphony No. 2 in 1963, dedicated to Jana. The Czech Philharmonic was scheduled to premiere the symphony, but the premiere was summarily cancelled, because the Svobodas fled the country in 1964.

Once the Svobodas arrived in Phoenix, Arizona, Jana and Tomáš married almost immediately.  Since then, Svoboda has been a prolific composer, including writing many new works for local Northwest ensembles, while teaching composition at Portland State University for 27 years. In 1982, Svoboda conducted the Portland Youth Philharmonic Spring Concert while Maestro Avshalomov was on sabbatical.

In December 2012, Tomáš suffered a devastating stroke, so his composing career came to an end, but his large body of music is still performed all over the world. In 2015, Camerata PYP premiered Svoboda’s Folk Concertino for Seven Instruments, Op. 82 (1977) at Portland State University, in conjunction with Chamber Music Northwest’s Winter Festival.

The November 2016 premiere of Svoboda’s Symphony No. 2 has involved creating the parts from the score, and PYP is working directly with the Svobodas to assure that the performance meets their expectations. They are both very excited to hear PYP’s performance of this symphony, which takes them back to before they were married, more than 50 years ago.

Program notes by PYP Development Manager Kristan Knapp