This year, the five-member jury will be made up of representatives from Sweden, Russian, Austria, Japan and the Czech Republic. The jury’s hands will be full, as they will have to award five prizes: Grand Prix Golden Prague, three Czech Crystals and Special Mention for Extraordinary Artistic Achievement.
Jonas Hermansson, a Swedish television director who has focused on stage productions for more than ten years, will be heading the jury. His domain is live broadcasts from the Swedish Royal Opera to cinemas. He, however, also works for the Swedish public television station SVT and various theatre and production companies.
Ekaterina Orlova works as Head of Foreign Projects for the International Relations Department at RTR, the largest media company in Russia. Outside of that, she produces dance and music programmes as well as films in the framework of RTR’s international co-productions. She is also the head of the Young Eurovision Musicians delegation and a member of the Television Committee of the European Broadcasting Union.
Frank Gerdes, Director of the Cultural Department at Austrian ServusTV, will join us from nearby Salzburg. His portfolio of production work includes successful documentaries such as Compatriot – Second Life and Footprints to the Unknown – Conductor Carlos Kleiber. He also gained experience in the field by heading projects at EuroArts Music and from international media cooperation.
Yasuko Kobayashi has been with the Japanese public television station NHK for more than 20 years. She is currently Director of the Music and Theatre Programme Division. She is in charge of international television co-productions in classical music. Most recently, she produced the Paris Opera Ballet’s production of Swan Lake and the Berlin Philharmonic’s concerts directed by Sir Simon Rattle.
Jiří Nekvasil, Director of the Moravian-Silesian National Theatre, will represent the Czech Republic in the jury. During his rich working life, he co-founded the international Ostrava New Opera Days festival, directed over a hundred, predominantly opera, productions not in only the Czech Republic but also abroad, and recorded dozens of children’s music programmes and operas for Czech Television.