Among Eastern Europe's premier wind players, clarinetist Ludmila Peterková is also a significant educator. She has a substantial catalog of recordings on the Supraphon label as both a soloist and a chamber musician. Peterková was born on September 16, 1967, in Karlovy Vary in what was then Czechoslovakia. She took up the recorder at age seven but then switched to the clarinet. In 1983, she entered the Prague Conservatory, and the following year, a hint that she might be a major talent emerged when she won the Concertino Praga competition. Peterková graduated from the Prague Conservatory in 1988 and went on to Prague's Academy of Performing Arts, often performing with chamber ensembles there. She rounded out her education with a year of study at the Conservatoire de Paris under Michel Arrignon. When she was 27, Peterková joined the faculty at her alma mater, the Prague Conservatory; she remained there as of the early 2020s. In 1996, she made her recording debut on the Supraphon label, joining Josef Hála and Josef Suk on a recording of clarinet trios by Mozart and Bruch. She has continued to record for Supraphon. Peterková has toured widely as both a soloist and a chamber player. As a soloist, she has appeared with leading orchestras, including the Czech Philharmonic, where she performed the Mozart Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622, in 2000. She has appeared with all the major Czech orchestras and abroad with such groups as the Solistes Européens Luxembourg and the Elbland Philharmonie Sachsen in Germany. Hála and Suk have been frequent collaborators, and she has also appeared both in the Czech Republic and abroad with such luminaries as mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená, harpist Jana Boušková, and violinist Shlomo Mintz. In 2023, Peterková moved to the Bridge label, joining the Martinů Quartet on a recording of chamber works by David Post. Peterková operates her own summer clarinet and chamber music course in Domažlice, West Bohemia. ~ James Manheim, Rovi