Robert Kružík

From August 2028 he becomes the new Music Director of the National Theatre Prague.

In March 2023 he made his debut with the Czech Philharmonic at the Rudolfinum in Prague and conducted the 2026 New Year’s concerts in the orchestra’s jubilee 130th season.

He is the first and so far the only conductor to receive the Jiří Bělohlávek Prize for artists under thirty and in 2025 he was awarded the Sir Charles Mackerras Prize.

In opera he covers a broad repertoire from Mozart to contemporary works. At the Janáček Opera of the National Theatre Brno he has prepared Rossini’s Le comte Ory, Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades and Eugene Onegin, Smetana’s Libuše staged for the 100th anniversary of the founding of Czechoslovakia, Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, Martinů’s The Greek Passion, Verdi’s Otello, the world premiere of Ľubica Čekovská’s opera Here I Am, Orlando, Szymanowski’s King Roger and Smetana’s The Devil’s Wall.

Alongside his opera work he regularly collaborates with leading Czech and international orchestras, including the MDR-Sinfonieorchester, Sinfonia Varsovia, the Czech Philharmonic, PKF – Prague Philharmonia, the Prague Symphony Orchestra FOK, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Brno Philharmonic, the Slovak Philharmonic, the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava, the Moravian Philharmonic Olomouc, the Pardubice Chamber Philharmonic and the Košice State Philharmonic. He is a regular guest at major music festivals such as the Prague Spring, Dvořák Prague, Smetana’s Litomyšl, the St Wenceslas Music Festival and Eufonie.

He began his musical career as a cellist. After graduating from the Brno Conservatory he studied both cello and conducting at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. He took part in a number of Czech and international cello competitions, among them the Prague Spring, the Bohuslav Martinů Foundation Competition and the Leoš Janáček International Competition. He completed a study residency at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste in Switzerland. Since 2020 he has been teaching at the Conducting Department of the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno.