Zbyněk Vostřák
Zbyněk Vostřák (10 June 1920 – 4 August 1985) was a prominent Czech composer of "New Music". Life. He studied composition privately with Rudolf Karel and was a conducting student of Pavel Dědeček in Prague. From 1939 to 1943 he was a member of the Prague Radio Orchestra. Vostřák held many jobs, including pedagogical jobs and conducting jobs for Czech radio and the National Theatre. He nonetheless spent the majority of his time on his compositions Style. Vostřák initiated his work in the generic Romantic style. Beginning with his cycle of songs entitled "While Falling Asleep", he turned to  dodecaphony and techniques proceeding from this particular principle. In the following years Vostřák employed the style known by the general title of "New Music". During the late 1960s and early 1970s he was widely engaged in composing electronic music which he sometimes combined with live performers. During the first stage of his career Vostřák wrote several successful operas and ballets. The following phase featured almost exclusively concert compositions with a predominance of instrumental music. Many of Vostřák's works are regarded as pioneering achievements in this field. As a resuft of Czechoslovakia's official cultural policy in the 1970s and  1980s, particularly in relation to the kind of music composed by Vostřák at that time, the composer had steadily decreasing possibilities for introducing his compositions at home, even though he had succumbed to national pressure by resorting to the use of phony titles for some of his works.