About the project
The idea of setting up an annual organ masterclass in Úterý came to life in late 2011, in a discussion between Adam Viktora and Tomáš Kaiser about the possible uses for a newly reconstructed organ in the St John the Baptist church in Úterý. The profound reconstruction of the instrument of J. L. Burckhardt from 1720 took two years and cost over 3.5 million CZK, provided mostly by the Norway Grants but also by a number of other donors. Through this rescue action, harmful modifications from various periods were removed and the original disposition of the organ was completely restored. It was clear that the precious instrument deserves to be used more fully than just for the weekly services and several organ concerts per year. The decision was to organise a masterclass for advanced students of organ music, and already the first year of the course, 2012, showed that there was a great potential to this project.
The number of participants nearly doubled in the second year, and the course newly included organ concerts in several places in the Pilsen region. Connections to other projects were established, such as Tři týdny baroka (Three Weeks of the Baroque) within the initiative Plzeň 2015, or the project of cooperation of Local Action Groups named Skrytá bohatství (Hidden Treasures). Another example of such an interconnection was the inclusion of the opening organ concert of Jan Doležel in the abbey of Kladruby into the series Kladrubské léto (Kladruby Summer), which attracted substantially greater attention to the concert. In the upcoming years, we will work to keep up and extend relations like these.