Department of Conducting and Opera Direction

He studied conducting with Jiří Bělohlávek, CBE and Tomáš Koutník at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts and then began to work as a conductor of the Janáček Opera at the National Theatre Brno, for a time becoming its chief conductor. In 2015-2020 he was the music director of the opera company of the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre in Ostrava. In 2019-2022 he was the chief conductor of the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra Olomouc. He regularly collaborates with most Czech and Slovak orchestras. He has repeatedly performed at the Brno International Music Festival, Janáček Brno, Smetana Litomyšl, Rheingau Musik Festival. In the autumn of 2019 he was twice a guest in the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein. He is currently Head of the Department of Conducting and Opera Direction at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts.

What are you most proud of during your time as an artist?

I wouldn’t call it pride, but joy.

I am happy to work in a team of enthusiastic, capable and passionate musicians who do not take our joint creation as a job but as a mission.

Where do you look for a source of motivation and inspiration?

Especially from its students and generally from young promising artists who have the desire and drive to improve their personal artistic qualities.

If you had to give one piece of advice to students, what would it be?

Appreciate your talent and develop it.

What does JAMU mean to you personally?

The Janáček Academy of Performing Arts celebrated 75 years since its foundation and has great potential for the future. I am very happy to be part of this important cultural institution and to participate in the continuous development of our faculty together with other wonderful teachers and students.

He graduated from the MU Faculty of Education – Music Education, MU Faculty of Arts – Musicology and the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts – Choir Conducting with doc. Lubomír Mátl. He also studied piano, organ, classical guitar, choral and solo singing. In 2017, he completed his doctoral studies at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in the field of Performance, since then he has been working as a teacher at the Department of Composition, Conducting and Opera Direction.
In 1993, he founded the Brno Student Choir VOX IUVENALIS (now the Brno BUT Choir), with which he achieved many successes at festivals and international competitions. Since 2017 he has been the choirmaster of the Mixed Choir Kantiléna, since 2018 the choirmaster of the Masaryk University Choir. He is also the artistic director of the nationally ranked GYMNASIA CANTANT showcase of high school choirs and was a member of the preparatory committee of FSU Jihlava and a member of the ARTAMA Prague Expert Council for Choral Singing.

What are you most proud of during your time as an artist?
I would probably not use the term proud, which has a somewhat negative personal meaning, but proud. And I am proud to be able to pass on the experience gained during my artistic practice to the students of such an extraordinary institution as the Janáček Academy.

Where do you look for a source of motivation and inspiration?
I am motivated and inspired by everyday life. I am lucky that my musical hobbies have become a profession that I still enjoy and find fulfilling years later.

If you had to give one piece of advice to students, what would it be?
What you learn when you’re young….

What does JAMU mean to you personally?
What JAMU means to me has changed over time. During my high school studies it was an unattainable goal (I did not study at the Conservatory), and during my studies it was a place where I could add practical knowledge to my theoretical knowledge from the Faculty of Arts and the MUNI Pdf and meet and be inspired by real capacities in my field. During my PhD studies, JAMU provided me with the background of an open and inspiring institution and now that I have the privilege to teach there, a space to pass on my experience to younger generations and to inspire further self-education.

Tomáš Studený was born in 1976 in Český Krumlov. More than ten years ago he sang in the JD choir, from where he left in 2003 to study opera direction at the JAMU. During his studies in 2008 he worked, among other things, in the Czech Philharmonic Choir Brno, and later as an acting teacher at the singing department of the Brno Conservatory, where he also worked for two years as a dramaturge and head of the concert department. He worked as a director at the Janáček Opera in Brno and at the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre in Ostrava. Nowadays he tries to combine teaching (the JAMU has been added to the conservatory) and directing – he had the opportunity to try drama and musical theatre. He made his directorial debut at the South Bohemian Theatre in October 2016 with the production of the opera The Opportunity Makes the Thief, for which he also composed a new Czech libretto. Since 2006 he has been the director of Ensemble Opera Diversa.

Until 2020 he was the artistic director of the South Bohemian Theatre Opera.

What are you most proud of during your time as an artist?

What I think of most for myself is not so much the particulars, whether they have more or less visible significance. What I enjoy most is being able to be part of teams of people who are not only excellent professionals, but who also get along well humanly. Whether it is at the conservatory, at JAMU or in the theatre, it always fills me with a good feeling to know that something can be developed and improved together. At JAMU I am probably most proud of the fact that we have such a great theatre at Orlí. And of course, the theatre is not just a building. The main thing is that we have such an extraordinary Chamber Opera, and that we are still working hard to develop this unmistakable quality that many people have managed to build here thanks to many years of effort. There are, of course, many undeniable qualities, but Chamber Opera is truly unique in many respects, even in the context of other art schools, and not only in this country.

Where do you look for a source of motivation and inspiration?

I don’t think I can analyze it exactly… Anyway, I can say for sure that it’s getting harder and harder and it’s costing more and more energy. 😊 With increasing responsibility and age, stress increases. But one must not take it too much. I try not to take myself too seriously if possible. I think humor in general is a very underrated means of psychohygiene.

If you had to give one piece of advice to students, what would it be?

My personal experience that JAMU has given me is that almost anything that one thinks up as part of one’s artistic creation at school, if it is just a little bit compatible with reality, can somehow be realized. But you have to really go for it and work for it. And then it works the same way outside of school. Always try to get the most out of yourself and your surroundings, trust yourself, trust others, be open. Be critical of yourself, and most importantly, don’t be comfortable. Whatever you do and learn, that is how you develop.

What does JAMU mean to you personally?

Well that’s an essay assignment, not a one sentence answer! 😊 I’ll put it another way. When I came to Brno many years ago for a talent show, I had this strange inner feeling when I entered the building, it’s hard to describe, just a feeling that I was in the right place. And fortunately, this feeling hasn’t left me yet.