Gustav Mahler

In 2010 and 2011 we, together with the whole of the cultural world, will be marking two notable anniversaries of the composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) who was born in our country in the village of Kaliště near Humpolec, spent his childhood up to the age of 15 in Jihlava and the Highlands border region between Bohemia and Moravia, and continued his ties with the land and culture of what is now the Czech Republic. (There was in particular his work as a conductor at Olomouc and in Prague, the world premiere of his Symphony No. 7 in Prague on 19th September 1908, as well as other instances). The Gustav Mahler Society, in continuing its earlier activities from the 1990s which gave rise to the restoration of his birthplace, is aiming to contribute to the purposeful presentation and promotion of the personality and music of Gustav Mahler with due emphasis on his Czech (böhmisch, Czech-Austrian and Czech-German-Jewish) roots, his ties to the Highlands region and Jihlava and on his personality’s international dimension.