Alfred Peschek

Alfred Peschek (14 May 1929 – 4 February 2015) was an Austrian composer and musician. Life and career Born in Linz, Peschek was drafted into the Volkssturm as a 15-year-old in the last year of the war, suffered a leg injury and was briefly taken prisoner of war in America. From 1946 he was able to continue piano lessons, received cello and music theory lessons and wrote his first compositions. Due to interruptions in his schooling caused by several months of hospitalisation, he did not complete the Matura until 1951 and then studied church music at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna as well as art history at the University of Vienna. He received his doctorate in 1957 with a dissertation on the masses of František Tůma. During his studies he was a member of the Akademie-Kammerchor, played organ concerts and appeared as a percussion substitute with the Wiener Symphoniker. Between 1957 and 1968 he wrote music reviews for daily newspapers and specialist journals and was on the staff of the ORF. In 1961, while working as a scientific advisor at the Anton Bruckner Private University, he conducted the first Brucknerfest in Linz and in nearby Sankt Florian, He worked as a f