Aleš Březina

Aleš Březina is a Czech-born musicologist, composer and film collaborator. He has published widely on twentieth-century music and is a world authority on the life and works of Bohuslav Martinů.

Březina has achieved success in the field of film and television. He has co-authored two documentary films about Martinů for Česká Televize and collaborated with Austria's TV ORF and the culture channel 3SAT. He is a major film composer, having written for the Oscar-nominated Musíme si pomáhat (Divided We Fall), 2000, and Horem Pádem (Up and Down), 2004, which was nominated for a Czech Lion for Best Film Music. Březina is also a classical composer; his new chamber opera Zítra se bude aneb Hra na proces (Tomorrow Will, or Play on Trial) will premiere at the National Theatre in Prague in April 2008 (See the 04/09/08 article "A Modern Composer Faces the Past" in the Prague Post, or listen to the Radio Prague report about Brezina's new opera and its highly political subject matter).

Březina is Chairman of the Editorial Board of Bärenreiter's ongoing complete critical edition of the works of Martinů. He has organized several international musicological conferences in Prague and Bregenz and has been the Director of the Bohuslav Martinů Institute in Prague since 1994. He is the program director of the Bohuslav Martinů Festival, as well as a member of the Artistic Board of the Prague Spring International Music Festival and the National Theatre in Prague.

Arts.wisc.edu