Prague Spring music festival to be held online this year with concerts streamed for free

Prague, April 5 (CTK) – The Prague Spring international music festival will be held online this year due to the measures against the new coronavirus outbreak and about ten concerts will be broadcast live on its website for free, its spokesman Pavel Trohaj told CTK today.

The public broadcasters Czech Television (CT) and Czech Radio (CRo) will include selected concerts in its program.

The festival director Roman Belor said an important role will be played by young Czech artists and chamber musicians.

Tickets for nearly 25 million crowns have been sold for the festival this year. Everybody will be returned the money and the organisers will announce in late April how it will be done.

Prague Spring is traditionally linked with May Country by Bedrich Smetana.This concert will not be able to be performed live on May 12, but the organisers are negotiating with Czech Television about broadcasting the recording of some of the concerts performed in the past years.

The 75th Prague Spring was to originally start on May 7 and present 53 concerts.

“It is hard to predict what restrictive measures will be still effective during the festival this year and it is understandable that the state authorities cannot give us any guarantees now. And so Prague Spring decided to find an alternative format so that music can bring hope even in this hard time,” Belor said.

The people who bought the tickets may donate a part of the price of the tickets to the festival to support the alternative program and future festival projects, the organisers said.