About

Marek Švejkar graduated from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris in the class of Philippe Berrod and Jerôme Comte and from the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Paris in the class of Franck Amet and Paul Meyer, both of which he successfully completed with the Premier Prix. He completed his secondary studies at the Prague Conservatoire in the class of Milan Polák and Ludmila Peterková. He is currently a member of the program of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome under Alessandro Carbonare and at the same time he is focusing on research at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Ostrava under Karel Dohnal.

In the upcoming 2025 season Marek is invited to collaborate with the International Music Festival Český Krumlov. This year he won an audition for the orchestral programme at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under Alessandro Carbonare and released his debut album Connection - Années de pèlerinage with Lenka Korecká in collaboration with Radioservis, a Czech Radio label. The premiere album was launched by the well-known Czech composer Adam Skoumal and the prominent Czech singer Leona Machálková. In the 2024/2025 season he will make his debut with the Brno Contemporary Ensemble, with whom he will perform the Czech premiere of Pierre Boulez's Domaines. In 2023, with the support of the Stadler-Trier Foundation, he completed a scholarship stay at the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel, Switzerland, performed with the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava and played solo in the Jihočeská filharmonic. A year earlier Marek performed at the Cairo Opera House as part of the Czech EU Presidency and during the concert season of the Brno Philharmonic played with the Trio Bohémo, with whom he began to collaborate. In the same year he became an artist and ambassador for the Czech Republic of the world-famous french company Vandoren. In 2019 he was invited to Washington, D.C., where he had the honour of performing at the celebrations of the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution and in the same year he gave concerts with members of the Karajan-Akademie der Berliner Philharmoniker. A year earlier he had become a temporary member of the Ensemble ECCE sponsored by IRCAM (Institute for the Creation of Modern Music). He made his solo debut at the Prague Spring Festival in 2017 in Prague's Rudolfinum. In 2016 he was the absolute winner in a competition for a solo concert with the Hradec Králové Philharmonic, a year earlier he won the audition for the Academy of Chamber Music and in 2014 he performed as a soloist with the Czech Philharmonic under the baton of Jiří Bělohlávek. In 2013 and 2012 he was invited several times as a soloist to perform with the Northbohemian Filharmonic Orchestra. In the past he has participated in recording solo albums with Eva Garajová and Philipp Berrod. He has been accepted into the Norwegian summer program of the Stavanger Chamber Music Academy under Yehuda Gilad and Martin Fröst, was selected by Charles Neidich for the chamber music program in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands, and participated in the Sibelius Summer Academy in Helsinki under Caloger Palermo and Harri Mäki. He has been the recipient of several major scholarship programmes, including the Stadler-Trier Music Foundation, Fondation de France, Mécénat Société Générale, Fondation Legs Jabès, The Kellner Family Foundation, Foundation Věra Třebická-Řivnáčová and others.

Marek got his pedagogical experience as a clarinet teacher at the Secondary school of music in České Budějovice, then as a substitute teacher at the Prague Conservatory and the Teplice Conservatory, then at the International Clarinet Courses in Domažlice alongside Ludmila Peterková and last but not least during his doctoral studies. He gained orchestral experience in cooperation with the Northbohemian Filharmonic Orchestra, the Kammerakademie Mittelböhmen, with soloists of the Czech Philharmonic, the Opéra de Limoge and in a series of concerts with the Orchestre de Paris and the Ensemble Intercontemporain. He has collaborated with important musical personalities such as Andrew Marriner, Daniel Harding, Matthias Pintscher, Sakari Oramo, Gábor Varga, Hae-Sun Kang, Philippe Bernold, Martin Fröst, Charles Neidich, Yehuda Gilad, Ecesu Sertesen and Jiří Bělohlávek, Florent Charpentier, Karel Leister, Calogero Palermo, Bruno Mantovani, Boris Garlitsky, Benjamin Yusupov, Paul Meyer, Niklas Liepe, Vovka Ashkenazy, Gottfried Pokorný, Martin Kasík, Harri Mäki and others.

Marek is a winner of several international clarinet competitions, such as Concorso Internazionale per Clarinetto Carlino (IT) - 1st prize; Markneukirchener Wettbewerb (DE) - absolute winner; Competition of Conservatories and Music Grammar Schools of the Czech Republic - 1st prize. prize; Międzynarodowy Konkurs Instrumentów Dętych (POL) - 1st prize; Concorso Internazionale per Clarinetto Bari "Saverio Mercadante" (IT) - 1st prize; Czech Clarinet Art Competition (CZ) - 1st prize; Concorso Internazionale per Clarinetto Breno (IT) - 2nd prize and others.