František Novotný studied violin at the Janáček Academy of Music in Brno, and with the violin virtuosos and educators, Zakhar Bron and Viktor Tretyakov. He has since accumulated victories, laureateships and special mentions from more than twenty competitions (e.g., Kocian Violin Competition 1979 – laureate; Concertino Praga; Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow; Prague Spring; Premio Paganini in Genoa; or Tokyo International Competition, among others). He is the holder of (the Italian radio and television corporation) RAI Award, and of the Henryk Wieniawski Medal. He has been continually building up his exceptionally wide repertoire (including, for instance, over seventy works with orchestra), which he performs in collaboration with leading symphony orchestras and during concert tours in major venues across Europe as well as in Japan and the US. Apart from the standard repertoire, he has been keen on introducing to audiences less well known or completely unknown works by globally renowned composers. Notably, he made the first recordings in this country of Romantic concertos by Arensky and Taneyev (2017). He has to his credit recordings for both Czech and international labels, including among many others violin concertos of Dvořák and Brahms (with Jiří Bělohlávek), or a unique double album featuring the complete violin output of Ernest Bloch. He has worked with various radio and television companies. As an educator, he teaches at the Janáček Academy’s Faculty of Music and at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, as well as regularly lecturing at master classes in the Czech Republic, France, Poland, Hungary, Japan, and the US. In 2009 he was granted full professorship. Elsewhere, he has been involved as a member of juries of a number of international violin competitions (Ernst Szymanowski, Carl Flesch, G.F. Telemann, Jenö Hubay, Balys Dvarionas, Prague Spring, etc.), and as the president of the Bratislava Academy’s recently established international violin competition whose first edition was held in 2022 under the aegis of the President of Slovakia. In 2023 he received the prestigious Kobushi- Shien Award in Japan, in recognition of his eminent concert achievements and his long-standing artistic contribution to the cultural life of Hyogo Prefecture and in the city of Kobe in particular.
www.frantiseknovotny.com
