Gloria Festival 2026 – International Choral Competition in Prague

doc. MgA., Mgr. Marek Valášek, Ph.D. leads the jury as its chairman. He studied conducting at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, music education and choral conducting at Charles University, and organ at the Týn School. Since 2002 he has taught at the Faculty of Education, Charles University, where he has headed the Department of Music Education since 2018.

He founded the Piccolo coro choir and the Piccola orchestra, both of which have won numerous national and international awards. He works with leading orchestras and choirs, records for Czech Radio and premieres contemporary works. He is choirmaster of Collegium paedagogicum, principal organist of the Capuchin Order in Prague and teaches at the Prague Conservatory. For his contribution to Czech choral music he received the Ferdinand Vach Award.

David Slater M.A., is an Australian composer, conductor and music educator.

His compositions have received numerous awards and were twice short-listed for Australia’s richest composition prize. His work encompasses many genres from concert hall to TV, film and advertising, and includes solo, chamber, choral and orchestral music. He receives regular commissions and his work is performed throughout Australia and the world.

Mr Slater is an experienced conductor with an extensive repertoire spanning from the Baroque to the present day. He has conducted student and professional orchestras and choirs in several countries, and many seasons of musical theatre. He founded and directed a number of award-winning ensembles which include contemporary music groups, orchestras, choirs, youth orchestras and musical theatre companies. Since 2016 he has worked with choirs and orchestras from Austria, China, England, Estonia, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Poland, Russia, Spain, Taiwan and the USA, as well as in Australia.

He is a regular guest at international music festivals, where he sits on international juries, conducts masterclasses and gives lectures. His regular schedule includes engagements in Austria, Italy and Slovakia, with notable events in Germany, Latvia and Russia, among others. Mr Slater has over 35 years’ experience as a music educator and lecturer. He is passionate about the role of music in society and in education and has promoted the creation, study and performance of great music throughout his career. He has been a consultant on music curriculum and final year examiner in three Australian states.

He has won many major awards for composition, conducting and services to music in the community, including the Symphony Australia Prize, the National Award of the Orchestras of Australia Network and Australia Day awards for services to music in the community. He has published articles on music and music education and is Australia’s representative to the World Choir Council.

After graduating from grammar school, he went on to study Czech Language, Literature, and Music Education at the Faculty of Education of Charles University in Prague (2002–8) and studied musicology at the Faculty of Arts (2003–6). His first experience with organised music dates to his childhood days as a member of the boys’ choir Pueri gaudentes; he later joined various professional choirs and chamber ensembles (the Prague Philharmonic Choir, the Prague Chamber Choir, Kühn Choir of Prague). Since 2010, he is a director of the Prague Chamber Choir, taking it on tours through most of Europe, Japan, Macao and Lebanon, and repeatedly participating in major music festival (Rossini Opera Festival, Wexford Festival Opera, etc.). Since 2012, he works in the Czech Cultural Center (formerly National Information and Consulting Centre for Culture) in Prague as expert guarantor of choirmaster workshops, administrator of the music Artama Library, editor of the Polyhymnia Bohemica choral series and adult and children choir coordinator. Jan Pirner has been the choirmaster of children’s choir Radost Praha since 2012 and chamber choir Vokalion Praha since 2015, with which he has won many international awards (Bratislava, Kaunas, Lindenholzhausen, Montreux, Neerpelt, Preveza, Rimini, Sopot, Taipei, Tours, Warsaw a. o.). He is a regular member of juries of national and international choral competitions as well. He was engaged as an editor of the academic journal Hudební věda (Musicology) and as a musicologist specialised on a work of Antonín Dvořák at the Department of Music History of the Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences (2012–18). In 2016, he received a best choirmaster award at Kaunas Cantat in Lithuania, the Prague 7 Award for Cultural Achievements and national price Choirmaster junior, awarded by the Czech Choirs Association. In 2024, he won price for the best conductor of Rimini International Choral Competition.