Aleš Březina

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Aleš Březina (2016)

Aleš Březina (born September 17, 1965 in Teplice , Czechoslovakia ) is a Czech composer and musicologist . He is the director of the Bohuslav Martinů Institute .

biography

Březina studied music (majoring in violin) at the Pilsen Conservatory and musicology at the Charles University in Prague, at the University of Basel and in Berlin. He shifted his musicological focus to Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959), about whom he wrote several studies. Since 1994 he has been the director of the Bohuslav Martinů Institute in Prague . He directs the complete critical edition of Martinů's works and has prepared critical editions of several of his compositions. From scattered fragments, he reconstructed the original version of Martinů's opera The Greek Passion , which had its world premiere at the Bregenz Festival in 1999.

Březina wrote several film scores, including for I have served the English King by director Jiří Menzel , for the drama We Must Hold Together by Jan Hřebejk and for Through this night I don't see a single star by Dagmar Knöpfel . For the music for the film Kawasaki's Rose , also by Hřebejk, he was nominated for the European Film Award in 2010. He also composed the chamber opera Toufar about the life of Josef Toufar , as well as the singspiel Charlotte: A Tri-Colored Play with Music about the life and work of Charlotte Salomon , who was murdered in Auschwitz in 1942 . His opera Zítra se bude ... ("Tomorrow will ..."), with the contralto Soňa Červená in the lead role, deals with the show trial of Milada Horáková (1901–1950) and was filmed in 2010 by Jan Hřebejk. Together with Dietfried Bernet , he translated the libretto of Martinů's Czech opera Julietta into German.

He is married and has two children.

Awards

  • Soundtrack for Kawasakiho růže ( Kawasaki's Rose ): Nomination for the European Film Awards , 2010.
  • Three nominations for the Czech Lion , Best Music: Horem pádem ( Up and down ), 2004; Líbánky, 2014; Milada, 2017.

Compositions (selection)

  • Zítra se bude ... , opera. First performance in 2008 at the Kolowrat Theater, Prague.
  • Toufar , opera. First performance in 2009 at the Prague National Theater under the direction of Petr Zelenka .
  • 1914 - Staged performance with motifs from Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Schwejk and Karl Kraus ' The Last Days of Mankind . Premiere 2014, directed by Robert Wilson .
  • Requiem for children's choir, solos and orchestra
  • Agnus Dei for three counterparties and string quintet
  • Aha! , Melodrama for Soňa Červená
  • Reperkuse , cycle for piano or harpsichord
  • Charlotte: A Tri-Colored Play with Music . Singspiel, libretto: Alon Nashman. World premiere in 2019.
  • Film music

Selected publications

  • “… An exaggerated, intentional simplicity.” Bohuslav Martinů as a reviewer of Parisian musical life in Meyer, Felix (ed.): Classicist Modernism . Amadeus Verlag, Winterthur 1996, pp. 449-450
  • The next stage of our journey is still in the unknown. Bohuslav Martinů's refugee drama 'The Greek Passion' in: Mosch, Ulrich (ed.): Entre Denges et Denezy . Documents on Swiss music history 1900–2000. Schott Musik International, Mainz 2000, pp. 407-413
  • Editing guidelines for the Bohuslav Martinů Complete Edition in: Hudební věda 2004, XLI, pp. 411–432
  • with Eva Velicka: Aspects of Music, Art and Religion at the Time of Czech Modernism. Peter Lang AG, 2009. ISBN 978-3-0391-0856-5 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Trial against Horáková: Strong opera theme, Radio Prague, April 29, 2008
  2. Summary

Web links

Commons : Aleš Březina  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files