Aleš Březina

Biography

Aleš Březina (b. 1965), Czech composer and musicologist. He studied violin at the Conservatory in Pilsen and musicology at universities in Prague, Olomouc, Basel, and Berlin.

Film Work

Březina has composed music for more than 20 films, including those by Jan Hřebejk (Divided We Fall, Up & Down, Beauty in Trouble, Kawasaki’s Rose, Honeymoon, A Case for the Exorcist), Petr Zelenka (The Buttoners), Jiří Menzel (I Served the King of England, The Don Juans) , Dagmar Knöpfel (Through This Night I See Not a Single Star), Petra Nikolaeva (Black Miss, Miss Black, Wolves in the City), Juraj Lehotský (Nina, Plastic Symphony), Georgis Agathonikiadis (My Uncle Archimedes), Tomáš Pavlíček (Bear with Us), David Mrnka (Milada); documentary films by Olga Sommerová (Věra 68, Marta) and Olga Špátová (The Greatest Wish 3), and television films directed by, for example, Dan Wlodarczyk (Private Traps – the episode “Escape”), Karel Janák (How We Revived Grandpa, Best Friend, The Princess and Half a Kingdom, About the Christmas Star) or Mark Najbrt (Smetana, co-composer Pavel Ridoško). He has been nominated four times for the Czech Lion Award for his film music (Up & Down, I Served the King of England, Honeymoon, Milada), and for the Czech Film Critics’ Award for the music for the film Honeymoon. He was nominated for the European Film Composer Award 2010 for the music for the film Kawasaki’s Rose.

Theatrical Work

His work for the theater is also extensive, where he has collaborated with Robert Wilson, Jiří Ornest, Hana Burešová, Jiří Nekvasil, Jan Hřebejk, Jiří Menzel, Pamela Howard, Šimon Caban, Jan Nebeský, Martina Schlegelová, Michal Dočekal, Petr Zelenka, Jana Kališová, Martin Vačkář, Roman Meluzín, Radim Špaček, and others.

Together with librettist and director Jiří Nekvasil, he is the author of the opera Tomorrow, There Will be … about the trial of Dr. Milada Horáková (Alfréd Radok Award for Best Music in 2008; film version directed by Jan Hřebejk, 2010). Březina is also the author of both the music and the libretto for his second opera, Toufar (premiered in 2013 at the National Theater in Prague, directed by Petr Zelenka), about the trial of priest Josef Toufar, which was created as part of the Parallel Lives project. The film version was directed by Blažena Hončarivová and Petr Zelenka, Czech Television, 2015.

In September 2010, his full-length “visual musical theater experience” The Epic of Mucha, with a libretto by Šimon Caban, premiered at the Brno City Theater. He also composed the stage music for two productions by world-renowned director Robert Wilson: The Makropulos Case (premiere 2010, Alfréd Radok Award) and 1914 (premiere 2014, nomination for the 2014 Theater Critics’ Awards—note: these replaced the Alfréd Radok Award), which was created to mark the 100th anniversary of World War I; Březina is also a co-author of the play’s concept. He was nominated for another Alfréd Radok Award in 2012 for the music for the production of Shakespeare’s King Lear, directed by Jan Nebeský (premiere 2011, National Theater, Prague). In 2012, the premiere of Beaumarchais’s The Marriage of Figaro took place at the National Theater in Prague, directed by Michal Dočekal. In December 2015, the South Bohemian Theater presented Martin Vačkář’s play Ark of Hope, directed by Jana Kališová, for which he composed the music. In November 2016, the J. K. Tyl Theater in Pilsen presented the theater musical Liduschka (Baarová), on which he collaborated with Roman Meluzín and Karel Steigerwald (nominated for the Theater Critics’ Awards and the Theater Newspaper Awards; the film version was directed by Jan Brichcín, Czech Television 2020).

In June 2017, the international project Charlotte: A Tri-Coloured Play with Music, on which he collaborated with Pamela Howard and Alon Nashman, was presented as a workshop at the Luminato theater festival in Toronto, Canada, and subsequently staged in Taiwan. In 2019, this chamber opera musical went on tour with stops in Toronto, Tel Aviv, Lviv, Kyiv, Prague, and at the Smetana’s Litomyšl Opera Festival (nominated for the Classics Prague Award). Since September 2021, the F. X. Šalda Theater in Liberec has been presenting Březina’s full-length ballet Mauglí (choreography by Marika Mikanová), followed in November 2024 by a second full-length ballet, The Snow Queen, on the same stage (choreography by Marika Mikanová, music co-composed by Pavel Ridoško); In 2021, his musical fairy tale The Monkey and the Fools, performed by Iva Bittová, also premiered at the Children's Strings Festival. In March 2024, the La Fabrika theater staged Karel Steigerwald’s play And So I Beg You, Your Highness; in June 2024, Jan Nebeský’s production of Wernisch premiered at the New Stage of the National Theater (winning the Production of the Year and Music of the Year awards). In 2026, he composed the music for the productions The Funeral of a Great Artist (Vila Štvanice, directed by Martina Schlegelová) and Twelfth Night (Stavovské divadlo, directed by Jan Nebeský). He is currently writing his third full-length ballet, Marilyn (choreography by Marika Mikanová, music co-composed by Pavel Ridoško), for the ballet company of the South Bohemian Theater in České Budějovice.

Concert Works

His orchestral compositions, melodramas, and suites from his film and theater music have been performed by the B. Martinů Philharmonic Zlín, the Prague Chamber Orchestra, the Guarneri Trio Prague, the Dvořák Trio, the North Bohemian Philharmonic Teplice, the South Bohemian Philharmonic, and the Hradec Králové Philharmonic.

He has written, for example, Requiem for children’s choir and small ensemble, Festive Banquet for mixed choir and orchestra, Agnus dei for three countertenors, the melodrama A-ha! (2006) for Soňa Červená and string quintet, and the piano cycle Repercussions (premiered in 2009, Prague). In 2012, Karel Košárek performed the world premiere of the composition Falling Leaves for piano and orchestra in Holešov with the Prague Chamber Philharmonic and conductor Gaetan d’Espinosa. The Epoque Quartet has had the chamber version of this composition in its repertoire since 2019. In 2013, the boys’ choir Boni pueri, together with the South Bohemian Philharmonic and later the Hradec Králové Philharmonic, premiered a new version of Březina’s Requiem for Soloists, Choir, and Orchestra. The piano trio Kawasaki’s Rose was commissioned by the F. L. Věk International Music Festival (premiered by the Dvořák Trio in October 2014 in Nové Město nad Metují). The third movement of this composition was written for the Guarneri Trio Prague; it had its world premiere in 2011 at the Stadtcasino Basel and its Czech premiere a year later at Prague’s Rudolfinum. In 2014, he also prepared a new version of the Requiem—Requiem 2014—which was performed by Boni pueri and the Musica Florea ensemble under the direction of Marek Štryncl, with soloists Iva Bittová and Vojta Dyk, at the Janáček May and Concentus Moraviae festivals. Commissioned by Pavel Šporcl, he arranged the composition Song for Chava (and Pavel) from the film Divided We Fall, which was released in September 2014 on Pavel Šporcl’s CD Gypsy Ways. Commissioned by the city of Polička, he composed the ceremonial fanfare Polička 750 in July 2015 to mark the 750th anniversary of the city’s founding. In March 2017, the South Bohemian Philharmonic, conducted by Vojtěch Spurný, premiered suites from the music for the films and theater productions Up & Down, Divided We Fall, The Epic of Mucha, and I Served the King of England, under the title I Served Jiří Menzel and Jan Hřebejk. For the reopening of the National Museum in Prague and the 100th anniversary of the founding of Czechoslovakia, he composed the sinfonietta Monumenta Bohemica, which was premiered by the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Radek Baborák (nominated for the Classics Prague Award). He is currently composing a new song cycle for soprano Martina Janková.

In his academic career, he focuses primarily on research into Bohuslav Martinů and Czech and world music of the 20th and 21st centuries. Since 1995, he has been the director of the Bohuslav Martinů Institute in Prague (www.martinu.cz) and chairman of the editorial board of the Complete Critical Edition of the Works of Bohuslav Martinů. He reconstructed the first version of the opera The Greek Passion (premiered at the Bregenzer Festspiele in 1999 in co-production with the Royal Opera House Covent Garden; winner of the Laurence Olivier Award in 2000). In 2025, he served as dramaturg and Scholar in Residence at the Bard Music Festival in New York State, whose theme was “Martinů and his World.” Together with Michael Beckerman, he also edited the book of the same name, published by the University of Chicago Press (2025).