Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava (JPO) is among the five leading symphony orchestras of the Czech Republic. Many conductors have contributed to the orchestra’s artistic development, among them Serge Baudo, Charles Mackerras, Václav Neumann, Libor Pešek, Christian Arming, and Petr Vronský, to name a few. The orchestra‘s current Chief Conductor is Theodore Kuchar. Throughout its 57-year existence, JPO has been a strong advocate of contemporary music. Since 1997, it has regularly performed under Petr Kotík. Performances include large-scale new music events such as the 4-hour concert at the Festival of Music of Extended Duration in Prague in 1997, a program which included performances of 103 by John Cage and Four Meditations by Pauline Oliveros. JPO has also performed several concerts of music for three orchestras since 1999, as part of the project Music in Space – Compositions for 3 Orchestras, conducted by Christian Arming, Petr Kotík, Zsolt Nagy, and Petr Vronský. Other performances include the Prague Spring Festival in 1999, Warsaw Autumn in 2000, and MaerzMusik in 2004. JPO‘s repertoire of pieces for three orchestras includes Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Gruppen. Other composers who have worked with the JPO include Somei Satoh, Tristan Murail, Maria de Alvear, and Roscoe Mitchell. Recently, under Petr Kotík, Zsolt Nagy, and Christian Arming the JPO performed, to critical acclaim, large-scale works by Edgard Varese and Tristan Murail along with Morton Feldman‘s Coptic Light and Violin and Orchestra with the renowned Czech-Swiss violinist Hana Kotková. JPO has recorded several works of new music, including 103 by John Cage for the Asphodel label (San Francisco), as well as orchestral works by Somei Satoh and Phill Niblock‘s Disseminate for Mode Records (New York).