Josef Špaček (born 1986 in Třebíč) is a Czech violinist who trained with Itzhak Perlman at the Juilliard School and with Ida Kavafian and Jaime Laredo at the Curtis Institute of Music. He served as concertmaster of the Czech Philharmonic from 2011 to 2020 - the youngest in the orchestra's history - before stepping down to focus entirely on a solo career. He is a laureate of the Queen Elisabeth Competition (Brussels, 2012) and records for Supraphon.
Album Martinů: Violin Concertos No. 1 and 2 (Supraphon, October 2025) received the Diapason d'Or award in February 2026 from the French magazine Diapason.
Supraphon released on October 17, 2025 a new album by Špaček with Martinů's Violin Concertos No. 1 and 2 and Stravinsky's Divertimento, recorded with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra and Petr Popelka.
In the 2025/26 season, Špaček makes his debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, and Hong Kong Philharmonic.
The debut album of Trio Zimbalist (Špaček, Gavriilidis-Petrin, Fu) with piano trios by Weinberg, Auerbach, and Dvořák received the Editor's Choice award from Gramophone magazine.
Supraphon released in September 2023 Špaček's recording of Martinů's Concerto for Violin, Piano and Orchestra and Violin Sonata No. 3 with pianist Miroslav Sekera and the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra.
