Although Emil Axman was a musician of many professions, he eventually focused on his career as a composer. He studied composition with Vítězslav Novák, counterpoint with Otakar Ostrčil, and music theory with Karel Stecker. Already during his grammar school and university studies he was an active member of several vocal groups and choirs (Moravan, Hlahol). From 1913 until his death he worked as a librarian and later the director of the National Museum Music Fund (the present-day Czech Museum of Music). Axman was also a graduate musicologist (his doctoral thesis dealt with Moravian operas in the 18th century, 1912), having graduated from Charles University under the tutorage of Zdeněk Nejedlý and Otakar Hostinský. The latter also supported Axman’s efforts in the field of folk songs and dances that Axman collected, studied, and arranged – the Slovácko region and its folk music traditions were of particular interest to him.
Jindřich Feld started his composition studies at the Prague Conservatory under Emil Hlobil. In 1952 he graduated from the Academy of Performing Arts where he had studied composition with Jaroslav Řídký, and he also received his doctoral degree in musicology, aesthetics and philosophy at Charles University in Prague. Apart from his extensive compositional output, he also taught both at the Prague Conservatory (1972 to 1986), and at several schools around the world (Denmark, England, France, Australia, Japan, etc.). Between 1990 and 1992 he assumed the position of music editor-in-chief at the Czechoslovak Radio.
Robert Hejnar (born in Olomouc) studied piano at the Prague Conservatory and composition under prof. Ivan Kurz at the Musical Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (1998). In 2005 he started his PhD studies here in the field of composition under Ivan Kurz. At present he teaches composition and related subjects at the Conservatory of the Evangelical Academy in Olomouc.
A graduate of the Conservatory of Teplice (piano) and the Faculty of Music at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (composition), Nejtek writes symphonic and chamber music, also taking interest in incidental music projects. He has been commissioned to compose music by Warsaw Autumn Friends Foundation (Distress Sonata, performed by the Katowice New Music Orchestra at the Warsaw Autumn festival 2002), and by the Donaueschinger Musigtage (A Thorn into the Flesh, 2002) and the Klangspuren festival (Frame Dreams, 2006). For their concert in Prague in 2003 the Dutch ensemble DE VOLHARDING commissioned Nejtek to compose a piece for the occasion (Irritating of Inland).
Education: composition - Academy of Music Arts Prague, theory of music - Academy of Music in Prague (postgraduate), Ph.D. 2001 on Charles University in Prague - Theory of Music and Pedagogy, docent 2006 - Theory of Music and Pedagogy.
Career: Professor of Conservatory in Prague – composition and theory of music docent at The Charles University in Prague, head of „Přítomnost“- society for contemporary music
Was born in 1972 in Brno. She began studying composition under Jarmila Mazourová (1991 – 1994). After graduating from the Grammar School in Brno, she studied musicology and aesthetic at the Masaryk University in Brno (1991 -1996) and composition at the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno (1994 – 1999, doctoral degree 2001 – 2006). She attended composition master classes in Reichenau (Austria) and Český Krumlov, and advanced her education at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität in Heidelberg and Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe (one-year postgraduate course with Wolfgang Rihm). In 2003 she was invited to Heidelberg (Germany) as a composer in residence. In 2006 she received a comission from the international music festival Young Euro Classic in Berlin to compose her symphony Zázněj.
Bedřich Antonín Wiedermann was born on October 10, 1883 in Ivanovice (Central Moravia, ČR) and died on October 5, 1951 in Prague. He studied grammar school in Prague. There he met Josef Klička who thought him singing at the time and later became his organ teacher. After graduating, Wiedermann worked as a civil servant at a tax office in Kroměříž for a short time before he entered the seminary in Olomouc in 1904. Seven semesters later he nevertheless decided to suspend his studies there and entered the Prague Conservatory. In an incredibly short time (in July 3, 1909) he graduated from organ play under Josef Klička. Next year he attended composition classes under Vítězslav Novák.
was born on October 4, 1974 in Kyjov. He studied bayan at the Brno Conservatory with Professor Jan Tesař. He continued his studies at Russia’s Gnesinych Musical Academy, where he studied bayan with Professor Josef Puric and composition with Professor Kirill Volkov. He also studied composition with Associate Professor Juraj Filas at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. During his studies, he won many international competitions (Klingenthal, Trossingen, Hořovice, Castelfidardo). As a soloist he performed with Vogtländische Philharmonie Greiz-Reichenbach, the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic Orchestra of Zlín and the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra of Ostrava. He played in many European countries and in the USA.
was born on 1st May 1958 in the town of Rychnov on Kněžna where he also finished his grammar school studies. He studied composition at the Prague Conservatory and at AMU (the Academy of Performing Arts), where he graduated in 1985. To enhance his education in composition, he took private lessons with Petr Eben, Svatopluk Havelka and took part in a course led by Z. Rudzinski.
Born January in Rychnov nad Kneznou, Czech Republic, Mr. Jirasek graduated at the Janácek Academy of Musical Art in Brno (JAMU), composition with Prof.Zdenek Zouhar as well as electro-acoustic, computer and electronic music and music theory.
Ivan Boreš was born under Aquarius on January 8, 1976 in Prachatice. He pursued many musical styles as a self-taught man until he reached 24.
Jan Bernátek was born on February 11th 1950 in Prostřední Bečva in Moravian Wallachia. He graduated from the conservatory in Ostrava and from Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno, where his specialisation was piano. Later he completed his study of composition at the conservatory in Prague under Ilja Hurník. He worked as a repetiteur and later as a teacher at the Music School of the City of Prague and at Jan Neruda Highschool that specialises in teaching music.
a composer, choir conductor, pedagogue and music life organizer whose operational range goes well beyond the Ostrava region. He worked as a teacher in the town of Frenštát under Radhošť and at the Janáček Conservatory in Ostrava, where he also assumed the position of director for more than 12 years.
Zdeněk Zahradník, born on 3rd June 1936 in Lomnice nad Popelkou. After completing the grammar school in Semily, he took a degree in composition at the music faculty of the Music Academy in Prague in 1958.
A well-known conductor, composer, and music arranger, Zahradník first attended and finished a civil engineering high school, before commencing his studies at the Prague Conservatory. Here he graduated in the field of composition and conducting, having studied the former with František Kovaříček and Zdeněk Hůla, and the latter with František Hertl. During his studies he earned his living as a pianist and conductor at the Theatre of Jiří Wolker. Later on he became a member of Quax, an experimental ensemble led by Petr Kotík. From 1973 to 1990 he held the position of chief conductor of the Czechoslovak Television Orchestra, with which he participated in many music-entertainment programmes. At the same time he composed and recorded many scores of incidental and film music.
Emil Viklický, a pianist, composer, music arranger and jazz music promoter was born on 23rd November 1948 in Olomouc to the family of a visual artist (his father was Jan Zrzavý’s assistant). Ever since the beginning of his career as a composer, Viklický has strived for creative innovations, taking his inspiration, among other sources, from the compositional techniques usual in artificial music, partly also within the movement of the so called New Music.
One of the most prominent representatives of Czech popular and dance music, Václav Vačkář studied the violin and the flugelhorn as a child, and was a member of a local band in his hometown of Dobřejovice. Because of his social position he could not afford to study at a conservatory. He thus enrolled as an apprentice with a military band. After three years, however, he was invalided out of military service owing to a hearing disorder. Afterwards, he became a soloist in a concert orchestra in czarist Russia. From the age of nineteen, he worked for several years as a conductor of Josef Faltys' theatrical company. In 1903 he 101 became a soloist and assistant conductor with a municipal band in Šibenik, Yugoslavia.
An author of concert, film, and popular music, D. C. Vačkář was born to the family of a composer, music life organizer, and conductor Václav Vačkář. In the years 1922 – 29 he attended the Prague conservatory, studying violin with Rudolf Reissig and composition with Otakar Šína. He then went on to the Master School where he studied violin with Karel Hoffmann and composition with Josef Suk. He also applied himself to conducting that he studied under Otakar Ostrčil. For one year Vačkář was a member of Jaroslav Ježek’s Orchestra at the Liberated Theatre, and together with Ježek and E. F. Burian he worked for the revolutionary group Devětsil (Butterbur). Between 1934 and 1945 he was a member of the Czechoslovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, and from 1945 to 1947 he worked as a screenwriter and dramaturge in a film studio. Afterwards, he became a freelance composer and writer.
Born to the family of an oboist, composer, and pedagogue Jindřich Vacek, Miloš Vacek attended the Prague Conservatory in 1943 – 47, studying organ with Jan Bedřich Krajs, Gregorian chant and theoretical subjects with Vladimír Němec, Metod Doležil, Zdeněk Hůla, and Emil Hlobil, and conducting with Pavel Dědeček. Afterwards, he entered the Music Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts to study composition under František Pícha and Jaroslav Řídký. He graduated in 1951, and in the same year he took up the position of choirmaster and conductor of the Vít Nejedlý Army Art Ensemble.
The character of his compositional production earned him the nickname “the last Prague Baroque master”, since he composes exclusively in the style of the 17th- and 18th-century music. He writes both sacred and secular music, and his compositions are often recorded (e.g. for companies such as Auviere, V + M Agency, The Holy Mountain or Lupulus). He applies himself to studying the music of old masters, and has processed and reconstructed many scores of early music. Apart from that he also arranges works by composers of other periods (e.g. the Humoresque by Antonín Dvořák arranged for violin and string orchestra). He attended the Prague Conservatory, studying oboe with Adolf Kubát, organ with Ladislav Vachulka and Jaroslav Vodrážka, and composition with Jaroslav Kofroň, Miloslav Kabeláč, and František Brož.