Slovakia on Music Theory Print

Eugen Suchoň

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Eugen Suchoň (September 25, 1908 – August 5, 1993) was one of the most important Slovak composers of the 20th century. Early life Eugen Suchoň was born on September 25, 1908, in the house opposite the Roman Catholic parish office on Farská Street (today’s space near the old Pezinok Cultural Center air conditioning) in Pezinok, (Slovakia). His father, Ladislav Suchoň, was an organist and teacher. His mother, Serafína Suchoňová, was a piano teacher, and it was from her that he received his first piano tuition. The house was always filled with music and, as a small child, he would listen from under the piano when his father rehearsed at home with other musicians. In 1920, at the age of twelve, he started taking piano lessons at the Bratislava School of Music with the distinguished musician Frico Kafenda. Later, from 1927 to 1931, he continued his studies with the same teacher at the newly established Academy of Music in Bratislava. His early works include several piano compositions and a choral work Veľky Pôst (The Great Fast). He graduated from his composition classes with the Sonata in A-flat for Violin and Piano and a String Quartet (op. 2, 1931, revised 1939). His two-year studies

Iris Szeghy

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Iris Szeghy (born 1956) is a Slovak composer living in Switzerland. Biography Iris Szeghy was born in Prešov, Slovakia. She studied piano and composition at the Conservatory in Košice and composition at the Music Academy in Bratislava, she ended it with a doctoral degree at the same school. Szeghy went through numerous composer residencies - at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, at the University of California at San Diego, at the STEIM Studio in Amsterdam, at the State Opera in Hamburg, at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, she was a scholar of the Landis & Gyr Foundation in London and Budapest etc. Iris Szeghy has won many international composition awards, her work has been performed and broadcast in Europe, America and Australia. Works Szeghy composes for orchestra, chamber ensembles and voice. Selected works include: *Hommage à Rodin - Touches with three Statues of the Master 1982 *Musica Dolorosa (String Quartet) 1985 *Minifanfare 1986 *Canto Triste Nocturne for Trombone (Violoncello) and Piano 1986 *Afforismi 1990 *Afforismi II 1992 *Midsummer Night’s Mystery 1992 *Midsummer Night’s Mystery II 1993 *Musica Folclorica - Hommage à Bartók 1996 *A Day in Manhatta

Ján Cikker

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Ján Cikker (29 July 1911 – 21 December 1989) was a Slovak composer, a leading exponent of modern Slovak classical music. He was awarded the title National Artist in Slovakia, the Herder Prize (1966) and the IMC-UNESCO International Music Prize (1979). Life Cikker was born in former Austria-Hungary, today Slovakia, in Banská Bystrica. His first music teachers were his mother, Mária Psotková, and Viliam Figuš-Bystrý. After he graduated from high school, he studied at the Prague Conservatory from 1930 to 1935, where he attended courses of composition of Jaroslav Křička, of conducting and organ. He then studied at the Master’s School of the Prague Conservatory from 1935 to 1936, where he was a student of Vítězslav Novák. Later on, he moved to Vienna, where he studied with Felix Weingartner from 1936-1937. From 1939 to 1949, he taught at the Bratislava Conservatory. At the same time he was a repertory advisor of the opera of the Slovak National Theatre from 1945 to 1948. He was forced to leave this post after the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948. Finally, he worked as professor for composition at the Bratislava Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (VŠMÚ), where he was the teac

Ján Zimmer

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Ján Zimmer (16 May 1926 – 21 January 1993) was a Slovak post-romantic composer and pianist. Biography Ján Zimmer was born in Ružomberok, North Slovakia. He studied at the Bratislava Conservatory between 1941 and 1948 with (piano), Józef Weber (organ) and Eugen Suchoň (composition). Afterwards he studied composition with Ferenc Farkas at the Budapest Music Academy, and in Salzburg in 1949. From 1948 to 1952 he taught music theory and piano at the Bratislava Conservatory. He also worked for the Czechoslovak Radio. From 1952 he devoted his time exclusively to composition and performance as a concert pianist (he performed in particular the piano part of his own piano concertos). His works, in the post-romantic style, are overall expressionistic and occasionally incorporate Slovakian folk music. Some of his works, such as the cantata The Uprising (1954), the powerful symphonic poem Strečno (1958), and the vocal symphonic poem Liberation (1975) are written in a nationalist spirit. Ján Zimmer composed more than 120 works, including especially two operas (1963 and 1977), twelve symphonies (from 1955 to 1985), seven piano concertos (from 1949 to 1985), many other concertos for various instr

Juraj Filas

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Juraj Filas (5 March 1955 – 31 December 2021) was a Slovak composer. His work included more than 100 compositions: symphonies, cantatas, numerous compositions for chamber ensemble, as well as the prize-winning TV opera Memento Mori; a concerto grosso Copernicus; the opera Jane Eyre (2010); The Wisdom of the Wise Man, a cantata for choir, cello and organ; The Song of Solomon, a cantata for soli, choir and orchestra; and the requiem Oratio Spei, which was dedicated to the victims of terrorism. Education Filas graduated from the Prague Conservatory in 1976 in voice and composition, and received a diploma in composition in 1981 from professors Jan Zdeněk Bartoš and Jiří Pauer. Career His compositions have been performed by well known soloists including Joseph Alessi, principal trombone in the New York Philharmonic, Otto Sauter, international piccolo trumpet soloist, and ensembles and orchestras in Europe and in the U.S. – including the Beethovenfest in Bonn, Germany, at the Prague Spring Festival, by the ORF, Vienna, in the Tonhalle of Zurich, as well as in London, Glasgow, St. Gallen, Geneva, Fulda, Paris, Hong Kong, Taipei, Tokyo, Mexico City, and at Carnegie Hall, New York, and by t

Juraj Lexmann

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Juraj Lexmann (19 January 1941 – 12 November 2025) was a Slovak musicologist, composer, film editor, and academic. He is best known for codifying modern Slovak Roman Catholic liturgical hymnals and for composing music for more than 120 films, as well as for his contributions to documentary sound design and musicological scholarship. Early life and career Juraj Lexmann was born in Bratislava on 19 January 1941. He began his career in 1958 as a laborer at an organ factory in Krnov. He later studied at the Industrial School for Musical Instrument Production in Kraslice while simultaneously completing studies in musical composition at the Ostrava Gymnasium. In 1964, he joined the public broadcaster as a film editor responsible for sound design, marking the beginning of his long-term professional involvement with film and music. His career combined practical work in sound and composition with theoretical reflection on film music. In the 1970s, he studied musicology at the Comenius University. After graduating, he founded the Department of Sound Composition at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava and served as Director of the Institute of Musicology of the Slovak Academy of Scien

Ladislav Burlas

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Ladislav Burlas (3 April 1927 – 11 February 2024) was a Slovak composer and musicologist. He worked at the institute of musicology at the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava from 1951 to 1990, as director of the institution from 1964 to 1974. The focus of his studies was the music history of Slovakia, especially of the 20th century. He was dean of the faculty of performing arts at the Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica from 2001 to 2005. He composed music in many genres with a focus on choral music and educational pieces. Life and career Born in Trnava on 3 April 1927, he completed school there in 1946 and studied from 1946 to 1951, composition with Alexander Moyzes and conducting at the and musicology at the Comenius University. He gained a PhD with a dissertation, “Cantus Catholici – prispevok k analýze hudby feudálnej spoločnosti na Slovensku” (Cantus Catholici – a contribution to the analysis of music in the feudal society of Slovakia). From 1951 he studied composition further with Moyzes, then at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. Burlas composed in many genres, for orchestra, chamber music, piano music and other works for solo instruments, with a focus on chor

Ladislav Kupkovič

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Ladislav Kupkovič (17 March 1936 – 15 June 2016) was a Slovak composer and conductor. Life Kupkovič was born in Bratislava, and studied violin and conducting there, first at the conservatory, then at the Academy of Performing Arts. He played violin in the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra from 1960 to 1965, and then began to write music for television and film to make a living. At the same time, he was writing more experimental music for concerts. In 1969 he won a music scholarship to West Berlin, and emigrated there the following year. In 1971, he conducted the premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Mixtur in Cologne, a piece dedicated to Kupkovič himself. In the same year, he began to teach music theory at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover, and lived in Haste near Hannover until his death. During the 1970s he was associated with the Cologne School . Wandelkonzerte Kupkovič has probably become best known for his experiments with the concert form in the 1970s. In Musik für das Ruhrfestspielhaus (1970), he arranged forty performers to play a number of pieces in a concert hall in Recklinghausen over the course of three hours. The pieces were played in various parts of the buildi

Ľubica Čekovská

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Ľubica Čekovská (Humenné) is a Slovak composer and pianist. Biography Čekovská studied at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava and the Royal Academy of Music in London. Her works have been featured at ISCM World Music Days festivals (2009, Sweden; 2013, Slovakia) and Prague Spring festivals (2006, 2013, 2015). She was awarded the Ján Levoslav Bella Prize for her piano concerto Two Portraits (2003), and the 2012 SOZA Award for international performances of Slovak music. Čekovská works in a variety of genres, including composing for film, television, and theatre. She is represented by the German music publisher Bärenreiter. Her latest opera, Impresario Dotcom, was commissioned for the Bregenzer Festspiele in 2020, but postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak. Čekovská then created a special abridged version for the restructured Festtage im Festspielhaus event in August 2020. Awards * 1998 Royal Academy of Music - The Cuthbert Nunn Composition Prize * 1998-2000 The Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust * 2000 Royal Academu of Music -The Leverhulme Award * 2004 Music Fund Slovakia - Ján Levoslav Bella Prize * 2011-2012 SOZA Award * 2013 Tatrabanka Fundation Award * 2020 Krištáľové

Michal Novinski

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Michal Novinski (born Michal Ničík 4 October 1971) is a Slovak composer. He is best known for his film scores and theatre music. He received two Czech Lion Awards for scores for the films Kooky and In the Shadow. Career Novinski’s career started when he was 19 with a commission from the Slovak National Theatre for a ballet The Light in the Darkness (), directed and choreographed by Ondrej Šoth. The success of this project was followed by a collaboration with the Slovak mime artist Milan Sládek. Novinski eventually worked with prestigious theaters in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary, including the National Theatre in Prague and Vígszínház Theatre in Budapest. He was awarded Czech Film and Television Academy Award Czech Lion for Best Music for the film Kooky (, 2010), directed by the Oscar-winning director Jan Svěrák. He also won Slovak Film and Television Academy Sun in a Net Award in 2010 for the Best Original Score for Jiří Chlumský’s film Broken Promise (, 2009) and in 2014 for the Best Original Score for David Ondříček’s film In the Shadow (, 2012), together with Jan P. Muchow. In 2016 he won the FICX Award for the Best Original Score for the film The Teacher (2016) at t

Vladimír Godár

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Vladimír Godár (born 16 March 1956, in Bratislava) is a Slovak classical and film score composer. He is also known for his collaboration with the Czech violinist, singer, and composer Iva Bittová. As an academic, he is a writer, editor, and translator of books on historical music research. He has been active in reviving the music and reputation of 19th-century Slovak composer Ján Levoslav Bella. Godár studied composition under Juraj Pospíšil and piano under Mária Masariková at the Bratislava Conservatory. In 1979, he began work as editor of the music books department of the record label OPUS, and he taught at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava from 1985. His work is little known outside Slovakia, with much of his music released by Slovart. Amongst his compositions is a large-scale sonata for cello dedicated to the memory of Victor Shklovsky. Godár won the 2001 Georges Delerue Award for the score of the film Landscape. His 1998 collection of essays Heretical Quodlibets " is scheduled to be published in English by Dalkey in 2024, as part of its Eastern European Literature series. Selected discography * Concerto Grosso and Partita; conducted by period performance specialist