Cappella Mariana is a vocal ensemble specializing in medieval and Renaissance polyphony and the vocal repertoire of Early Baroque. The performances of Capella Mariana have met with enthusiastic reception from the public and critics alike, the latter highlighting the ensemble’s expressive performance based on close attention paid to the text. Cappella Mariana was founded in 2008 as one of the few local ensembles focussing on the interpretation of high vocal polyphony, especially from Italian, Flemish, and English Renaissance.
The ensemble works under the artistic direction of Vojtěch Semerád. The members of the ensemble are internationally renowned vocal artists who also specialize in the interpretation of Baroque and pre-Romantic music. It regularly performs at music festivals and on prestigious stages both in the Czech Republic and elsewhere in Europe, including Oude Muziek Utrecht, MAfestival Brugge, Musikfest Bremen, Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alte Musik, Laus polyphoniae Antwerpen, Tage Alter Musik Regensburg, Prague Spring, Muziekgebouw Amsterdam a.o.
In 2021, the ensemble, together with the Constantinople ensemble and Sasha Rashilov, debuted at the Prague Spring Festival with a unique programme "Kryštof Harant or Wandering to the Holy Land". The project has received more than a dozen performances throughout Europe, including an overseas tour to Canada, and its recording on the Supraphon label won the 2024 Anděl Award in the Classical category.
Cappella Mariana became the Alamire Foundation's ensemble in residence in 2021. The artist residency included hands-on research in the Library of Voices, an innovative sound lab. The research focused on the relationship between musical source, performance and the historical spaces in which polyphonic music was originally heard.
The ensemble's discography for the Supraphon and Etcetera labels includes recordings with a revelatory dramaturgy of unknown authors or compositions. The title "Johannes Tourout - Portrait of an Imperial Kapellmeister" is the first recording in the new Alamire Foundation Editions series, which presents music by forgotten works by Franco-Flemish composers from the Central European region. A recording of Jean Richafort's rediscovered compositions on the Musique en Wallonie label earned the ensemble a Diapason d'Or award in 2025.
Vojtěch Semerád | tenor, haute-contre
Vojtěch Semerád is a graduate of the Prague Conservatory, the Faculty of Education, Charles University in Prague (choral conducting), and the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris (Baroque violin with François Fernandez). He was a finalist in the International Telema Telemann-Wettbewerb International Competition in Magdeburg. He has studied singing since 2018 through private lessons (with teachers such as Chantal Santon Jeffery, Peter Kooij, Ivan Kusnjer) and numerous masterclasses.
As a soloist, Vojtěch Semerád is invited by renowned ensembles such as Les Arts Florissants, Ensemble Pygmalion, Vox Luminis, Collegium Marianum, Ensemble Correspondances, Collegium 1704 or Wrocław Baroque Orchestra, with whom he performs at major international venues and festivals such as Théâtre des Champs-Ělysées, Park Avenue Armory New York, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Logan Center Chicago, Concertgebouw Rotterdam, Wigmore Hall London, Palau de la Música Barcelona, Philharmonie de Paris, Salzburger Festspiele etc. He has taken part in several opera productions, and has recently sung the role of Acis in Georg Friedrich Handel’s Acis and Galatea, the role of Atys in Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Atys, the role of Pythonisse in Marc-Antonine Cahrpentier’s David et Jonathas and The Fairy Queen by Henry Purcell, or in the contemporary opera L'annonce faite à Marie by Philippe Leroux at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. He is regularly invited as the Evangelist in passions and oratorios by Johann Sebastian Bach and his repertoire ranges from Baroque music to the bel canto repertoire of Rossini and Donizetti.
Vojtěch Semerád is the artistic director of the vocal ensemble Cappella Mariana, with which he performs forgotten works of vocal polyphony of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Baroque era. The ensemble regularly appears at prestigious festivls such as Oude Muziek Utrecht, MAfestival Brugge, Laus Polyphoniae Antwerpen, Klangvokal Dortmund, Prague Spring, Innsbrucker Festwochen, Tage Alter Musik Regensburg, and Concentus Moraviae. The ensemble received the Czech Angel Award for Best Recording in the category of Classical Music for 2024 for the album Pilgrimage.
As a violinist, Vojtěch Semerád also performs in multi-genre and original musical projects and as researcher, he focuses on the rediscovery of 15th- to 17th-century vocal music in Central Europe..
He has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Alpha, Naïve, Harmonia Mundi, Passacaille or Supraphon, he has contributed to more than 30 recordings, and also regularly records for Czech Radio.