The name Ondrej Lenard is very well known to the Radio Romania Music listeners, thanks to the great number of recordings he has made for Naxos Records; namely accessible works, gathered in compilations entitled in such a way so as to attract the great public. There are also exceptions: Czech music albums, for example those dedicated to the work of Janacek and Dvorak, or Russian music, including works by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. Moreover, there are CDs with ballet music.

But is this the complete picture of the Slovak conductor's activity? We found out, in an interview he gave to journalist Jitka Novotná from the Czeck Radio in 2012, about the musician's admiration for the two great Romantic symphonists: Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss. We have also read about his exigency in working with the orchestra, which has not always made him popular among the ensembles he worked with!

Biographic reference points - Ondrej Lenard

His biography relates that he was born on 9^th September, 1942, in Krompachy, a mining town in Slovakia, and that he studied at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. He started his musical career in 1962, as the choir conductor at the Slovak National Theatre, where he returned in between 1984-1986, as the chief conductor, and during 1997-1998, as the Opera director. In 1970, Ondrej Lenard became the chief conductor of the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra in Bratislava and during 1993-2001 he was its artistic director. He worked a lot with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, initially as a guest conductor and then as the first conductor and music director of the Japanese ensemble. Since 2011, he has been the chief conductor of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra. He conducted orchestras in the greatest theatres of the world - at the Vienna State Opera, the Grand Opera in Houston, the Liceu in Barcelona, the Teatro di San Carlo in Neaples and the Hungarian State Opera in Budapest. He performed concerts in Canada, Brasil, the USA and Japan. In 1974, Ondrej Lenárd was a laureate of the International Conducting Competition in Budapest and in 1998 he was awarded the Slovak Order of Ľudovít Štúr prize and became Doctor Honoris Causa of Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica in 2002.

Ondrej Lenard, for the first time in Romania

Ondrej Lenard's presence next to the Prague Symphony Orchestra at the International Festival of Radio Orchestras - RadiRo, gave us the opportunity to know him directly, to see him conducting on stage and have an interview with him - which we are inviting you to listen to in two editions of the Successful Music Stories scheduled on 23^rd and 30^th November, 2014, at 10:00.