Worldwide celebrations of the music of Bohuslav Martinu are planned for 2009, the 50th anniversary year of the composer’s death.
Events in the Czech Republic include a major feature at the Prague Spring Festival, operas staged by the National Theatre Opera companies in Prague and Brno, and concerts to celebrate the opening of the Martinu Centre in the composer’s home town of Policka in April 2009. The symphonies feature prominently in the plans of the Czech Philharmonic, and a new recorded cycle has just been released on Supraphon by the Prague Symphony, who will turn their attention to concerts featuring the concertos in 2009.
Another centre of focus will be Switzerland where the exiled composer spent his last years as a guest of Paul Sacher. Performing organisations in Basel are joining together to present the Martinu Festival Days in October 2009, co-ordinated by the Institute of Musicology.
Czech performers will be much in evidence internationally, including Jirí Belohlávek conducting a concert staging of Julietta on 27 March 2009 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London.
Worldwide celebrations of the music of Bohuslav Martinu are planned for 2009, the 50th anniversary year of the composer’s death. 
