About the App

Concert Archive of the Slovak Philharmonic

An expert-curated archive of classical music unlike any other. It's not just a collection of videos—it's a comprehensive database of hundreds of concerts since 2008, linked to composers, performers, conductors, ensembles, works, and excerpts. Each concert is placed in context: who performed, what they performed, when, where, and why.

What sets us apart

Most music institutions have a simple YouTube video and a concert list on their website. The Concert Archive of the Slovak Philharmonic goes far beyond that.

A player that understands music

Our video player is not just a window with a Play button. The concert programme runs below the video, automatically highlighting the currently playing work and its movement. Click any work in the programme to jump to its beginning — including individual movements of larger pieces. With a Beethoven symphony, you can click directly on the 3rd movement without searching through two hours of recording.

The player supports automatic subtitles in Slovak and English, YouTube-inspired keyboard shortcuts and frame-precise navigation for professional users.

Selected concerts offer multiple audio tracks — for example a boosted mix and Hi-Fi recording, or multilingual dubbing. You can switch audio tracks directly in the player. Each concert can have custom track names matching the recording content.

If you want to share a specific moment, click the link icon in the player — it copies a URL with the exact time position and part number.

A database, not a list

Every concert is connected to hundreds of related data points:

• Composers — nearly 800 profiles from the Middle Ages to the present, with biographies, work catalogues and links to concerts where their music was performed
• Performers and conductors — profiles with photographs, biographies and complete concert history at the Slovak Philharmonic
• Musical works — thousands of compositions with composers, arrangers, individual movements and performance history
• Ensembles — Slovak Philharmonic, Slovak Philharmonic Choir, Slovak Chamber Orchestra and more — with concert history and member lists
• Programme notes — expert texts accompanying individual concerts, often containing information not available elsewhere on the internet

Everything is interconnected: from a composer you can reach their works, from a work to concerts, from a concert to the conductor, from the conductor to other concerts they conducted.

External sources and data verification

A music database of this scope requires constant accuracy checks. That is why we attach links to external sources — Wikipedia, the Music Centre Slovakia, IMSLP, artists' personal websites and others — to profiles of composers, performers and works. These links serve to cross-reference the data we provide and allow users to deepen their knowledge from multiple independent sources. We recommend always verifying the accuracy of information by comparing several sources.

At the same time, none of these external sources alone offers what our archive does — Wikipedia has no concert recordings of the Slovak Philharmonic, IMSLP has no videos, and the Music Centre Slovakia does not link composers to works, concerts and performers. The archive brings all of this together and uses links to independent sources to reinforce credibility. This is the approach used by the world's leading music databases.

Intelligent search

Search works across the entire archive — simultaneously searching concerts, composers, performers, works and ensembles. Simply type “Dvorak cello” to find concerts with Dvorak cello works. Search understands multi-word queries and works with diacritics.

Bilingual URL addresses

The entire archive is fully bilingual — including URL addresses. The Slovak version uses /skladatelia, /koncerty, /dirigenti, the English version /composers, /concerts, /conductors. This is not just a language switcher — each language version has its own URL structure optimised for search engines.

Interactive timeline

Nearly 800 composers displayed on a visual timeline from the Middle Ages to the present. Colour-coded periods (Baroque, Classicism, Romanticism, Modern) help navigate the history of music. Nationality filters allow focusing on, for example, Slovak composers only.

Calendar

An interactive calendar displays all concerts in a clear monthly or weekly view. See when and where each concert took place, and click to go directly to its detail page.

Playlists

Create custom selections of works from different concerts. The player plays them seamlessly — you can assemble your own concert programme from the entire archive.

Favourite concerts

Mark any concert as a favourite with a star. Your favourites are accessible via the icon in the navigation bar and are stored directly in your browser — no registration required.

Recommendations after playback

After watching a concert or playlist, the archive recommends related videos. The algorithm selects by content: first concerts with Slovak composers (if they were in the programme), then concerts with the same composers, other recordings of the same work and concerts from the same period.

Slide-style gallery

Concerts with photo galleries display photos in classic slide style — uniform frames, full uncropped photos, with interactive zoom on hover. Click to open a full-screen lightbox.

Solos — exceptional moments

Besides complete recordings, we also offer short solo excerpts — the most beautiful moments by performers from concerts. Solos can be browsed by composer, performer or instrument. They play in an elegant mini-player that opens directly on the page.

Dark and light mode

The archive automatically adapts to your device settings. Dark mode is ideal for watching concerts in the evening — it's easier on the eyes and matches the atmosphere of a concert hall. You can also switch modes manually using the icon in the navigation bar.

CMSF — Central Brain of the Slovak Philharmonic

For internal users, the archive also serves as a complete database of all concerts — including those that were not recorded. Every concert has a status (draft, database, published) and the archive thus serves as the single source of truth for the concert history of the Slovak Philharmonic.

How it works

Concert videos are recorded and produced by StreamTeam — the audiovisual production department of the Slovak Philharmonic. Recordings are hosted on the Vimeo platform and made accessible through this archive.

The application was originally launched in 2008. In 2025–2026 it underwent a complete modernisation — new design, new architecture, new features. The application was designed and is managed by Marek Piaček. The code was created with the assistance of Claude AI (Anthropic).