About us

The Pražák Quartet – one of today’s leading international chamber music ensembles - was established in 1972 while its members were students at the Prague Conservatory. They won major chamber music prizes from early on, including first prize at the prestigious Evian String Quartet Competition, along with a special recording prize from Radio France. Since then, the Quartet has established itself on major world podiums through its musicality and polished quartet playing that carries on the special Czech tradition of music-making. The Quartet has played in its current formation since 2020 and includes one of its original founding members, violist, Josef Klusoň.

The Pražák Quartet has been at home in concert venues worldwide for decades. They are regular guests in the major European musical capitals such as Prague, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Milan, Madrid, London, Berlin, and Munich, and have been invited to participate in many international festivals, where they have collaborated with such artists as Menahem Pressler, Jon Nakamatsu, Cynthia Phelps, Roberto Diaz, Josef Suk, and Sharon Kam. In recent years, the quartet has a special collaboration with pianist François Dumont, including making recordings and giving numerous performances at concert halls such as the Theatre du Champs-Elysees and the Salle Gaveau in Paris, and at festivals such as the Cartagena Music Festival in Colombia.

The Quartet has toured widely in North America, having performed in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Washington, Philadelphia, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and many others. The quartet returns to the US and Canada regularly.

The Pražák Quartet has recorded extensively for Praga Digitals, releasing 50 award-winning CDs. In addition to numerous radio recordings in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic, the Pražák Quartet has also made recordings for Supraphon, Panton, Orfeo, Ottavo, Bonton, and Nuova Era. The Quartet's recent recordings for the Praga Digitals label include a disc of the last 3 quartets of Joseph Haydn, which received critical acclaim from The Strad and Diapason among others, and a CD in collaboration with François Dumont, celebrating the 200th birthday of Cesar Franck. The Quartet’s latest recording, released in August 2024, is of Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ with soprano Helen Kearns.

Members of the Quartet also regularly give master classes and coaching to young musicians and ensembles at various festivals and courses.

Four musicians walking down a staircase with ornate black railing, carrying string instruments, with a conductor leading, inside a building with beige walls and decorative wrought iron balconies.
Four musicians standing on a balcony with string instruments, including two violins, a cello, and a viola, in an elegant indoor setting with decorative woodwork and columns.
A group of five musicians holding string instruments, standing and sitting on a grand staircase in a classical building, smiling for the camera.
A woman with dark brown hair holding a violin, standing outdoors against a light-colored wall, smiling and looking to her right, dressed in a black outfit with sheer sleeves.
An older man in a black suit holding a violin, standing indoors next to a wooden wall.
A middle-aged man with gray hair, dressed in a light blue shirt and dark blazer, holding a large, polished wooden cello with the neck and scroll out of view. He is smiling slightly against a dark background.

  • Born into a musical family in Plzeň, Jana began learning violin with Miroslav Novák. She continued her studies at the Prague Conservatory with Jindřich Pazdera and in 2000 won the Talent of the Year Competition. This led directly to a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London where she studied with Prof. Felix Andrievsky, graduating in 2005. From 2001 Jana was an Orpheus Scholar and from 2004 a Scholar, supported by a Yehudi Menuhin Award at the RCM. From 2005 to 2007 she studied at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague with Prof. Václav Snítil.

    A top prize-winner at major international competitions, in 2000 Jana won first prize at the International Competition for Young Violinists K. Lipinski/H. Wieniawski held in Lublin, Poland and in 2001 received the European Prize in Strasbourg.

    Jana has performed extensively in Europe - in the Czech and Slovak Republics, in France, Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy, Norway, Poland and Belarus as well as Japan and Israel. As a concerto soloist she has appeared with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jiří Bělohlávek, the Belgian National Orchestra, European Union Chamber Orchestra, Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, and on tour with the distinguished Czech violinist Václav Hudeček. She has made recordings for Czech Radio and Czech Television, as well as for BBC Radio 3, Radio Classique France and NHK TV Japan.

    From 2003 till 2012 she was a member of the Smetana Piano Trio, with whom she recorded for Supraphon label a number of albums which received prestigious accolades, including a Diapason D'Or (September 2006) and the 2007 BBC Music Magazine Chamber Music Award.

    Since 2015 she has been the first violinist of the Pražák Quartet.

    Since being selected for representation by YCAT (Young Concert Artists Trust) in 2002, Jana has appeared at major venues and festivals throughout the UK including Wigmore Hall (London), Bridgewater Hall (Manchester), St. David’s Hall (Cardiff), Harewood House, the Chester, Leamington, Gower, King’s Lynn, Mecklenburg and Prague Spring Festivals.  In 2004 she made her BBC Radio 3 broadcast from the Bath Festival. 

  • Born into a musical family in Ostrava, violinist Marie Fuxová began winning competitions from a young age. She won the Czech Music School Competition, the Czech Conservatory Competition twice, and the first prize at the Kocián International Violin Competition twice. She was a regular participant in summer master classes in Semmering, Austria, where she received the Wiener Classic Prize and the Bohuslav Martinů Prize. She also won the International Bohuslav Martinů Competition in Prague, the Beethoven Competition, and multiple other international awards.

    After graduating from the Janáček Conservatory, she studied at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague with Prof. Ivan Straus and with other top Czech and international violinists, including Prof. Michael Frischenschlager, Charles Avsharian, Ruggiero Ricci, Eszter Perényi, Václav Hudeček and František Novotný.

    She was a member of the Pavel Haas Quartet, with whom she gave concerts in prestigious halls worldwide, and in 2009 received the MIDEM Classical Award in the chamber music category in Cannes. She also performs with the Bavarian Chamber Orchestra and the Pro Arte Trio Prague. As of 2020, Marie is a member of the Pražák Quartet.

    She teaches at the Gymnasium and Music School of the City of Prague and collaborates with the Dubai National Conservatory.

  • Born in Vysoké Mýto, Josef Klusoň studied viola at the Conservatory of Music and Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in the masterclass of Josef Koďousek, a member of the Vlach Quartet. During this time he was awarded many prizes both in viola and chamber music competitions. In 1972, together with Josef Pražák and Václav Remeš, he founded the Pražák Quartet, with whom he has performed extensively to great acclaim, appearing repeatedly worldwide in venues such as the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Konzerthaus Vienna, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, Wigmore Hall in London, and many more.

    In addition to his activities in the Quartet, he appears as partner of renowned groups in various chamber music and gives many master classes, most recently at the CME in Bruxelles, Musica Mundi, ProQuartet, and Sommerakademie Wien.

    He has recorded the complete Sonatas for Viola and piano by Reger, Martinu and Brahms for Radio Prague and Harmonia Mundi. He has also been a jury member at several major string quartet competitions.

  • Pavel Jonáš Krejčí, violoncello, was born in London and raised in Prague. He began his cello studies with Prof. Pražák, studied at the Prague Conservatory, and spent a year in London studying with William Pleeth. He received a scholarship from the University of Southern California, where he studied for four years with Lynn Harrell. During his time in Los Angeles, he performed in the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute and the New York String Orchestra.

    After completing his studies, he returned to Europe. As a member first of the Škampa Quartet and then of the Petersen Quartet and Schulhoff Quartet, he has appeared in major concert venues throughout the world, such as Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center in New York, the Philharmonie in Berlin, and the Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, and was Artist in Residence at London's Wigmore Hall. He is principal cellist of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, and has played with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. He has performed with artists such as Melvyn Tan, Boris Pergamenschikov, Lynn Harrell, Lars Vogt, Nikolai Demidenko and more. He has given masterclasses in places such as the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Winterthur Conservatory in Switzerland, the Hyogo Performing Arts Center in Japan, and in the USA, and has been on the juries of major string quartet competitions such as ARD and Paolo Borciani.