The Harmonie Foundation

The Harmonie Foundation has brought a unique program of music instruction to the Czech Republic. The program provides children with free musical training, gives them an opportunity to build an orchestra and become an indispensable part of a community in which everybody has their place.

The program started in 1975 in Venezuela as El Sistema and since then has been successfully developing in the US, Canada and 27 countries in Europe.
The notion of a socially preventive music education came to the Czech Republic thanks to Milada Cholujová, the founder of the Harmonie Foundation, in 2009. Since then professional musicians have been giving children a chance to promote their abilities, learn how to work in a team and experience joy of music and life, while building an orchestra. Children, regardless of their family or social background, school results or cultural roots, receive as many as 8 hours of free group training in playing a musical instrument a week. Thanks to the project’s approach, methodology and philosophy, its positive impact on children in socially excluded localities has been plain to see. Thanks to this program children are known to have better school attendance, better school results, better concentration and higher self-confidence. The communities into which the project brings music, order and discipline cooperate much better and their attitude to other groups of citizens is more forthcoming. Intense music education and public performances given by children’s orchestras also improve the quality of relations and support within the family.

Everything the Harmonie Foundation brings to children, families, schools, communities and localities is free of charge. Several hours of musical training led by professional musicians, musical instruments, concerts and last but not least adventure, skills, experience, friendship… The values we would very much like to spread to other places, to other children, who would otherwise be roaming the streets, wasting their enormous energy in the wrong direction.

PEOPLE

Milada Cholujová

Milada is the Founder of the Harmonie Foundation. She graduated from the Charles University’s Faculty of Philosophy in Prague, English and Czech studies. She worked as an editor in the Foreign Language Broadcasts of the Czechoslovak Radio, preparing and recording interviews with outstanding personalities of classical and popular music, theatre, film and fine arts. Her programs featured conductors Václav Neumann, Charles Mackerras, Leonard Slatkin and Neville Marriner, distinguished soloists John Lill, Garrick Ohlsson and Eugene Indjic, film directors Miloš Forman and Jiří Menzel, writers John Updike, William Styron and William Saroyan, musicians and actors Benny Goodman, Timothy Dalton, Barbra Streisand, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Elton John and many others. Her experience of the non-profit foundation sector was acquired during her work as the Director of the Prague branches of the CDC (Citizens Democracy Corps based in Washington, DC) and the CIJ (Center for Independent Journalism), two organizations that prepared large-scale educational programs in the Czech Republic. She founded the Harmonie Foundation in the autumn of 2009.

Judita Hunáková

Judita studied film, art history and art at the universities in Britain and the Netherlands. She is a co-founder of the Harmonie Foundation, currently working in the film production business.

Helena Markusová

Helena is a Member of the Board of Directors of the Harmonie Foundation. She graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy of the Charles University in Prague, English and German studies. She won her doctoral degree by defending her diploma in English linguistics. She worked as an editor of the English Service of the Czechoslovak Foreign Language Broadcasts and then she served at the United States Embassy in Prague, first as a media analyst, later as a political analyst. She also worked as the Executive Director of the non-profit organization Ferdinand Peroutka Endowment Fund and as the PR and Student Recruitment Director at the Anglo-American University in Prague. After a short spell in the non-profit organization Život90 she served as a press secretary of the Czech Republic’s Attorney General, and then as the spokesperson of the Attorney General’s Office in Brno and of the Ministry of Culture.

Dagmar Němečková

Dáša was born in Prague, after leaving the Secondary School of Economics (foreign trade) she was employed in clerical jobs – as a secretary at the Czech Technical University, the Czech Agricultural University, and in the Trade Research Institute. She also received hands-on experience as an assistant in the Secretariat of the Czech Ministry for Trade and Industry and in the company TMF, where she served as an archivist. She came into contact with the non-profit sector while working for the Prague branch of the CDC (Citizens Democracy Corps based in Washington, DC) and the CIJ (Center for Independent Journalism), organizations that prepared large-scale educational programs in the Czech Republic. She has been with the Harmonie Foundation since 2012.

Irena Nováková

Irena graduated from the Faculty of Arts at Palacký University in Olomouc, English and Polish studies. For several years she worked in the real estate sector – first as a project manager in an American real estate development company, then as a managing director of a Canadian company focused on providing real estate investment and asset management services. Shortly after graduation, she was appointed a court translator and interpreter of the English language and has been actively pursuing this profession ever since. She has been working at the Harmonie Foundation as a project coordinator since 2020.

Program coordinators

Program coordinator: Irena Nováková  novakova.irena@nfharmonie.cz  tel. 608 900 827

TEACHERS

Dominik Landsinger (conductor and viola teacher)

Dominik graduated from the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague. He still directs and conducts the orchestra he founded there. He is a member of the Prague Concert Co. and works in the Harmonie Foundation as a conductor and viola teacher. Music is everywhere in his life, he plays violin, viola and other instruments in several musical groups. He loves travelling, skiing, cooking and eating, and spending time with his friends and family.

Alexander Hledík (orchestra manager and violin teacher)

Alex studied the Prague Conservatoire and the Academy of Performing Arts. In 2011 he played under the baton of J. Bělohlávek in the Prague Conservatoire’s Symphony Orchestra in the opening concert of the Prague Spring Festival. He is a concertmaster in the Prague Film Orchestra, playing first violin in his own string quartet. He is active in private music teaching.

Terézia Hledíková (violin teacher)

Terezka is a student in a master’s program at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. During her studies, she had performed as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral player, not only in the Czech Republic, but also in Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Germany, Italy, France, Austria, and Luxembourg. She participated in several national and international competitions, where she was awarded leading prizes, such as Talents for Europe in Dolný Kubín (Slovakia) or Young Paganini in Legnica (Poland). She participated in violin courses led by renowned violinists, such as Ilya Gringolts, Vadim Gluzman, Midori Goto, Josef Špaček or Dalibor Karvay. Since 2020, she regularly attends Ševčík’s Academy, where she had the opportunity to collaborate with conductor Jakub Hrůša. She also participated in the last two years of an international masterclass IMMC Slavonice, led by the members of the Vienna Philha rmonic Orchestra. In February 2022, she debuted with the Pilsen Philharmonic under the baton of Chuhei Iwasaki, and in April successfully passed the entrance exams at the Manhattan School of Music, Mannes School of Music, and San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Since Septe mber 2022, she has been a member of a
Chamber Music Academy led by cellist Tomáš Jamník and since December 2023, she has been a member of the string orchestra “Prague Chamber Soloists” with an artistic director Radek Baborák. She has several teaching experiences. She started with private teaching of a foreign student Estonian American), which made her improve her language skills connected with music education.

At the last Ševčík’s Academy, she was requested to be a teaching assistant and had an opportunity to collaborate with violinist Josef Špaček and conductor Jakub Hrůša.
Since September 2022, she has been a regular lecturer at the Harmony Foundation.

Oleg Cingarski  (violoncello teacher)

2015-09-09