Milan Polák, clarinet

Polák MilanFoto: Archiv umělce

A native of Hodonín (born 1967), Milan Polák graduated from the clarinet section of the Brno Conservatory (under Lubomír Bartoň). He continued his studies at Brno’s Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in a clarinet class under Valter Vítek.

As a student, he won accolades in the Dušek Competition (1982, first place), the Teplice Conservatory Competition (1984, first place) and in the Ministry of Culture’s Interpretative Competition (1987, 1990 - first place and the title of laureate).  

Polák has been engaged with the Brno State Philharmonic and the orchestra of the opera at the National Theatre in Bratislava. Since 1992 he has been solo clarinetist with the Prague Philharmonia. 

He has performed solo with that orchestra in Germany, Austria, Spain, Lebanon and Turkey. With the Prague Philharmonia he presented the European concert premiere of Robert Aldridge and recorded Ondřej Kukal’s composition Clarinettino for Czech Radio. As a soloist, he has also collaborated with the Czech Chamber Orchestra, the Teplice Philharmonic and Zlín’s Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic Orchestra.  

He is a member of the international orchestra Solistes Européens Luxemburg, with whom he regularly appears.  

Since 1998 he has been teaching at the Jan Neruda music-oriented grammar school in Prague and Brno’s Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts.