© Petra Hajska

1^st deputy, first violin, Czech Philharmonic

Irena Jakubcová was born to a family of musicians and started playing the violin at the age of five in the Karlovy Vary music school. Later on, she studied at the Pilsen Conservatory in Professor Jiřina Holotová’s class and graduated from the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague with a Master’s degree in Ivan Štraus’ class. She won the first prize at the Czech Conservatories Competition in 2000. As a soloist, she repeatedly performed with the Pilsen Philharmonic Orchestra and with the Czech Philharmonic in a concert celebrating 100 years since the birth of Czech composer Vítězslava Kaprálová, conducted by Jakub Hrůša. In 1997, she was selected to represent the Czech Republic in the European Union Youth Orchestra during its tour around Europe with Bernard Haitink.

In 1999 she took part in Académie de musique du XX^e siècle in Paris and studied contemporary music with Pierre Boulez and the International Contemporary Ensemble. She attended the summer courses in Semmering (Austria) where she won the Bohuslav Martinů, Leoš Janáček, and Béla Bartók prizes for the best interpretation of violin sonatas. Thanks to a Socrates-Erasmus programme scholarship, she studied with Professor Vladimir Malinin in Weimar in 2001. She joined the PKF – Prague Philharmonia in 2003, also performing as a soloist with the ensemble. She was a member of the Martinů Quartet between 2007 and 2010 and has been the Czech Philharmonic associate concertmaster since 2012.