Otomar Kvěch

Czech composer and teacher Otomar Kvěch was born in Prague on 25 May 1950 and had piano lessons from the age of five. At Prague Conservatory he studied composition with Jan Zdeněk Bartoš and organ with Joseph Kuban. Then he studied composition at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts with Jiří Pauer and Emil Hlobil.

He worked as an accompanist at the Opera National Theatre, and after national service, worked at Czechoslovak Radio, as secretary of the Composers Union, and taught composition at Prague Conservatory. At the end of his life he worked at the Jewish Museum in Prague, was head of the composition department at the National Conservatory, taught music analysis at the Academy of Music and worked as a music editor at the Vltava radio station.

Otomar Kvěch died on 16 March 2018, aged sixty-seven, leaving a wide ranging catalogue of orchestral music, concertos, vocal and choral music, children's radio operas, chamber and keyboard music.