Barbora Linke-Holická

Violist and Associate Professor of Viola at the Hochschule für Künste in Bremen, member of the Prague Chamber Soloists and artistic director of the festival “Rokytnice zní – Music and Literature Days” in Rokytnice nad Jizerou.

Violist Barbora Linke-Holická is a graduate of the Prague Conservatory. She continued her studies in the class of Professor Kim Kashkashian at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin and completed her education in the class of Professor Wolfram Christ at the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg im Breisgau, where she was awarded her soloist diploma with distinction.

With the Kastalia Quartett she was for many years a scholarship holder of the Villa Musica chamber music academy, and she is a graduate of the opera orchestra academy of the Zurich Opera House as well as the academy of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich. She is a prize-winner of numerous competitions, including Beethovenův Hradec, the Internationaler Instrumentalwettbewerb Markneukirchen, the Carl Flesch Academy and the Gustav Scheck Prize.

She performs with many leading European chamber orchestras, among them the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Camerata Academica Salzburg, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. She is a member of the ensemble Prague Chamber Soloists and collaborates regularly with the Baborák Ensemble in Prague. Her chamber music partners include the Oberon Trio, Henja Semmler, Robert Hill, Tanja Tetzlaff, Marco Thomas, the Signum Quartett, members of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and members of the Czech Philharmonic.

Barbora Linke-Holická is deeply committed to historically informed performance on period instruments and also plays the viola d’amore. She appears frequently with early-music ensembles such as La festa musicale and La Scintilla Zürich. She is principal violist of the contemporary-music ensemble Risonanze erranti in Munich, which collaborates closely with young composers; with this ensemble she has premiered, performed and recorded numerous contemporary works, including the Stabat Mater for viola and baritone by German composer Wolfgang Rihm.

In 2022 she founded the festival Rokytnice zní – Hudebně-literární dny v Rokytnici nad Jizerou (Rokytnice Sounds – Music and Literature Days), for which she serves as artistic director and programmer. The festival focuses on Czech–German cultural history and on the connection between music and literature. She actively promotes Czech culture abroad and collaborates with the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Germany.

Since 2022 she has devoted herself with great enthusiasm to teaching young musicians as Associate Professor of Viola at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen and serves on the juries of various competitions. She plays a viola made by Alexander Švýcarský in 1999, and lives with her family in Bremen, Prague and Rokytnice nad Jizerou.