Václav Zahradník

A well-known conductor, composer, and music arranger, Zahradník first attended and finished a civil engineering high school, before commencing his studies at the Prague Conservatory. Here he graduated in the field of composition and conducting, having studied the former with František Kovaříček and Zdeněk Hůla, and the latter with František Hertl. During his studies he earned his living as a pianist and conductor at the Theatre of Jiří Wolker.

Later on he became a member of Quax, an experimental ensemble led by Petr Kotík. From 1973 to 1990 he held the position of chief conductor of the Czechoslovak Television Orchestra, with which he participated in many music-entertainment programmes. At the same time he composed and recorded many scores of incidental and film music.

For instance, Zahradník wrote music to the film You Make the World Fun (S tebou mě baví svět), or to TV bed time stories and other fairy tales. He aroused broader public notice as the author of songs and arrangements for the beat band The Rebels that are recorded on an album from 1967 called The Sleeping Beauty.

Zahradník 110 was a co-author of several jazz music projects: in 1969, for example, he recorded the album Jazz Goes To Beat with a studio big-band. Apart from these pursuits, he composed jazz orchestral pieces and musicals, e.g. Pets (Mazlíčkové), 1974; or The Tower of Babel (Babylónská věž), 1975. He also applied himself to arranging popular film music and musical pieces for the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the Prague Symphony Orchestra FOK, and the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra.

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