Pavla Jahodová Vondráčková,
harpist, educator.
Pavla Jahodová Vondráčková will be teaching harp at I-AME 2025. Her lessons are open to students of all levels, with individual attention to both solo and ensemble playing. She will focus not only on classical technique and interpretation but also on expanding students’ expressive possibilities through a diverse and inspiring repertoire.
A graduate of the Prague Conservatory and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, Pavla Jahodová Vondráčková later enriched her education through music courses with British harpist Suzanne Drake. From the beginning of her career, she has focused mainly on chamber and solo performance. She founded the ensemble Venus Trio (violin, harp, cello), with which she has performed not only in the Czech Republic but also abroad. At the 3rd Harp Congress in Vienna, she premiered the Sonata for Harp by Juraj Filas, for which she received an award for outstanding interpretation. Thanks to her initiative, the sonata was later published in the USA as well.
She also founded the ensemble Šarbilach, dedicated to Jewish folk music. The ensemble continues to exist today in a renewed form – performing alongside Pavla are young female musicians, including her daughter, a flutist.
Pavla Vondráčková has collaborated, and continues to collaborate, with many prominent musicians across various disciplines (K. Kluge, J. Hošek, J. Svěcený, among others). Her recordings have been broadcast not only by Czech Radio and Television but also by BBC Nottingham.
She performs as a soloist (recitals) and with orchestras (Teplice Philharmonic, Virtuosi Pragenses, among others) throughout Europe (United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, Belgium, Slovakia, and more), as well as in the USA and Taiwan.
Pavla is also a dedicated music educator. Since 1985, she has taught music education in various school settings (elementary and grammar schools), as well as harp in her private studio. Since September 2018, she has been teaching harp at the Říčany Music School. Her students regularly succeed in national and international competitions. In addition to teaching numerous private students, she has taught at international courses such as Ameropa, collaborated as a pedagogue in the preparation of symphony premieres by J. Vogel, works with the children’s theater Feigele, and founded the harp ensemble “Harfičky”, for which she arranges a unique repertoire, including adaptations of popular music.
Pavla Jahodová Vondráčková plays an American-made “Venus” harp.
