Miroslav Srnka

Born in 1975 in Prague. Miroslav Srnka studied musicology at the Charles University and composition at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts. He is professor for composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne and a sought-after juror at competitions such as the renowned Mahler Competition in Bamberg or the Mauricio Kagel Composition Competition. He is also a member of the Artistic Advisory Board of the Prague Spring Festival, where he founded and co-curates Prague Offspring, a festival which focuses on new music.

Miroslav Srnka’s international breakthrough came in 2016 when his opera South Pole was premiered at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich under Kirill Petrenko, in a production by Hans Neuenfels that featured Rolando Villazón and Thomas Hampson in the title roles. But even before that, Srnka had received several major commissions and awards, including the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation Composer’s Prize in 2009. His works have been performed by renowned interpreters including the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, Beethoven Orchester Bonn, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien and the Munich Chamber Orchestra, by conductors such as Peter Eötvös, Jakub Hrůša, Susanna Mälkki and Cornelius Meister at festivals like Lucerne Festival, Ultraschall Berlin, Wien Modern, Présences Paris, Prague Spring, Musica Strasbourg, Milano Musica, Printemps des Arts de Monte-Carlo, Ostrava New Music Days and Contempuls.

Standstill for harpsichord and orchestra had its world premiere at the Cologne Philharmonie in September 2022, featuring Mahan Esfahani and the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne conducted by François-Xavier Roth. In May 2023, Orion Arm was premiered at the Philharmonie de Paris with trumpeter Simon Höfele. Superorganisms for large orchestra began its tour at NHK Tokyo in 2023, continued in 2024 with performances by the Orchestre de Paris conducted by Klaus Mäkelä and the Czech Philharmonic led by David Robertson, culminating in a performance with the Berliner Philharmoniker under Kirill Petrenko in 2025. Theater an der Wien hosts the world premiere of Voice Killer, a new opera, in 2025, with Klangforum Wien in the orchestra pit.

His short opera Wall, based on a work by Jonathan Safran Foer, was premiered at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin in 2005, and in 2006/2007 he was the “Composer for Heidelberg” at Theater Heidelberg. In 2011, his chamber opera Make No Noise premiered at the Bayerische Staatsoper and Jakub Flügelbunt, a “comic book for three singers and orchestra”, received its first performance at the Semperoper in Dresden. In 2017, the Dialogues Festival in Salzburg presented a comprehensive portrait of the composer with numerous events and premieres. For its 100th season in 2018/2019, the Los Angeles Philharmonic commissioned Srnka to write the piece Overheating. In 2015, the concert series musica viva in Munich presented move 01 & 02.

During the same series in 2019, Speed of Truth was given its first performance with Jörg Widmann, clarinet, and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Bavarian Radio Chorus conducted by Susanna Mälkki. The commissioned work Milky Way, written for the ECHO (European Concert Hall Organisation) Rising Stars Tour and the trumpeter Simon Höfele, had been premiered at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, with further performances in the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Cologne Philharmonie, the Philharmonie Luxembourg, the MüPa Budapest, The Sage Gateshead, St Lukes in London, the Gulbenkian in Lisbon, Baden-Baden and Birmingham. In 2021, the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, together with the Klangforum Wien under Patrick Hahn, premiered his new chamber opera Singularity – A Space Opera for Young Voices. Srnka has collaborated for many years with the ensemble Quatuor Diotima, which has performed his quartets across Europe and issued a portrait CD with chamber music on the Naïve label.

In 2025, Miroslav Srnka is a tutor at the Darmstadt Summer Course for the first time.