Karel Husa

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Karel Husa at 85

During the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons, orchestras, conductors, chamber ensembles and soloists worldwide will celebrate the 85th Birthday of Czech-American composer Karel Husa. The award-winning composer/conductor enters his 85th year with "too many commissions to complete" and a true joy-of-life spirit as he continues to travel the world.

Born in Prague on August 7, 1921, Karel Husa's life has geographically followed a course dictated by others. 

Narrowly escaping forced labor in a German factory in 1941, he continued studies at the Prague Conservatory until the final year of the war when all classes were suspended until Allied liberation in 1945.

In 1946 he traveled to Paris, honing his skills with the French masters of the day and earning accolades (both as composer and conductor) from the international press. In 1949, the communist government of Czechoslovakia rescinded his passport, making him a man without a country. In 1953 he conducted the first European recording of Bartok's The Miraculous Mandarin. In 1954, famed American musicologist Donald Grout invited Karel Husa to America. Cornell University granted him tenure and he remained there nearly 40 years. In the ensuing years, Karel Husa was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music (Third String Quartet), the Grawemeyer Award (Cello Concerto), the Friedheim Award (Recollections), and the Sudler Award (Concerto for Wind Ensemble), among numerous other awards and honors. Like many of his generation, Karel Husa views America and its open arms as his home.

The output of Karel Husa remains forever exciting, changing, and challenging. Of the 1987 premiere of his Concerto for Orchestra (a work the composer believes to be one of his most important) by the New York Philharmonic, Musical America wrote, "This is a work fervent and luminous…there is much in the concerto which recalls the intensity of Bartok and the mystical eloquence of Mahler…but there is no sense of the derivative in Husa's rhetoric; his language is personal and deeply felt."

With over 50 recordings of his music to date, the works of Karel Husa are certainly part of the musical fabric of our time.

For personal appearance information or a copy of the 85th Birthday brochure with selected works and recordings, please email TDStanton@stantonmgt.com.

For complete catalog information or perusal scores/recordings of the works of Karel Husa, please visit the following publisher websites.

G. Schirmer/AMP, New York, New York
www.schirmer.com
or telephone the Schirmer office at (001) 212-254-2100

Schott, Mainz, Germany
www.schott-music.com
or telephone the Schott office at (49) (0) 6131-246-885
(from the US, contact European American at 305-521-1604)

Alphonse Leduc, Paris, France
www.alphonseleduc.com
or telephone the Leduc office at (33) (0) 1.42.96.89.11
(from the US, contact Theodore Presser at 610-525-3636)

The Karel Husa Archive and Gallery at Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York may be contacted at (001) 607-274-1367 (Fax: (001) 274-1727) or via email at mradice@ithaca.edu.

New Recordings