Karel Husa

Karel Husa (born August 7, 1921 in Prague) is a Czech-born classical composer and conductor. He is best known for his compositions for wind instruments.

Overview

Husa learned to play the violin and the piano in early childhood and, after passing his final examination at high school, he enrolled in the Prague Conservatory in 1939 where he studied in a class of Jaroslav Řídký, a Czech composer with traditional leanings, and attended courses in conducting led by Metod Doležil and Pavel Dědeček.

After the end of the Second World War, Husa was admitted to the graduate school of the Prague Conservatory, where he attended courses led by Řídký and graduated in 1947. At the same time, he decided to continue his studies of composition and conducting in Paris. In 1947 he studied with Arthur Honegger and Nadia Boulanger. He studied conducting with Jean Fournet, Eugène Bigot and André Cluytens. After finishing his courses in conducting at École Normale de Musique de Paris and at Conservatoire de Paris he embarked on a career during which he has conducted the world's leading orchestras and participated in many major projects. He divided his time between composing and conducting, taking an ever more active part in Parisian and international musical life.

His "First String Quartet" marked a big step on the composer's path to the realm of international music: the Quartet received the 1950 Lili Boulanger Prize and the 1951 award at the music festival in Bilthoven in the Netherlands. It has since also been performed on many other occasions, e.g., at the festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music in Brussels (1950), festivals in Salzburg (1950), Darmstadt (1951), and the Netherlands (1952) as well as at various concerts in Germany, France, Sweden, England, Switzerland, Australia and the United States. Other compositions written by Karel Husa during his stay in Paris include "Divertimento" for String Orchestra, "Concertino" for Piano and Orchestra, "Évocations de Slovaquie", "Musique d'amateurs", "Portrait" for String Orchestra, "First Symphony", "First Sonata" for Piano, and "Second String Quartet". Throughout this period, the composer's underlying preoccupation and interest was style, which was primarily influenced by Vítězslav Novák, Janáček, Bartók and Stravinsky.

He is probably best known for his "Music for Prague 1968", a work in memory of the 1968 Soviet bloc invasion of Czechoslovakia. His "String Quartet No. 3" won the Pulitzer Prize in 1969. Husa is the 1993 recipient of the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition presented by the University of Louisville for his "Concerto for Cello and Orchestra". From 1954 until 1992 he was a professor at Cornell University and lecturer at Ithaca College from 1967 to 1986. Husa now resides in Ithaca, New York.

Compositions

Ballet

Concertante

Vocal

External links

* [http://www.bruceduffie.com/husa.html Karel Husa interview by Bruce Duffie]
* [http://www.schirmer.com/default.aspx?TabId=2419&State_2872=2&ComposerId_2872=749 Karel Husa] at G. Schirmer
* [http://www.musica.cz/comp/husa.htm Karel Husa at Czech Music Information Centre]
* [http://www.sigmaalphaiota.org/home/ComposersBureau/HusaKarel/tabid/334/Default.aspx Karel Husa at Sigma Alpha Iota]
* [http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/96/10.24.96/Husa.html Cornell Chronicle]