Our History

Ensemble Inégal was founded in the year 2000. Under the leadership of its conductor Adam Viktora, it earned international acclaim thanks to its highly praised concerts and awarded CD-recordings, thus becoming synonymous with the ongoing rediscovery of the legacy of the ingenious Czech baroque composer Jan Dismas Zelenka, of whose works it performed and recorded an unparalleled number of World Premieres. The interpretative range of the highly versatile Ensemble Inégal spans from renaissance to contemporary music. In addition to early music, the ensemble has on its account innovatory performances and recordings of romantic (Dvořák, Rossini) and contemporary music (Britten, Pärt).

Ensemble Inégal has performed on prestigious European festivals such as the Prague Spring Festival, Musica Antiqua Brugge, Oude Muziek Utrecht, Lufthansa Festival London, Aschaffenburger Bachtage, Bach Festival Riga and many others. Ensemble Inégal has recorded 10 successful CDs earning a range of international awards (Diapason d’or, IRR Outstanding, Goldberg 5 stars, a.o.), it features regularly in broadcasts of Czech and foreign television and radio stations (BBC, EBU, Czech Television, Czech Radio, Deutschlandradio Kultur, a.o.).

Since 2007, Ensemble Inégal organizes its own concert series “Czech Baroque Music – Discoveries & Surprises”. The uniqueness of this project lies in the fact that each year it presents to the public musical discoveries and concert premieres of baroque music by Czech composers or from Czech music archives. The most significant “Discoveries & Surprises” concerts premiered works by J.D. Zelenka, A. Vivaldi, H.I.F. Biber, S. Capricornus, J.C.F. Fischer, J.J.I. Brentner, M. Vogt, J.H. Schmelzer, a.o.

For the year 2012, Ensemble Inégal is preparing more significant renditions of Zelenka’s magnificent music, e.g. his breakthrough work Missa Sanctissimae Trinitatis and a performance of his large-scale Italian oratorio for Good Friday Il Serpente di Bronzo, which will be part of the Prague Spring Festival program. In preparation is a new CD for this year, in which Ensemble Inégal presents its audience with another world-premiere, its eighth recording in a row of a Zelenka work.