Karel Boleslav Jirák
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Karel Boleslav Jirák (Karel Bohuslav Jirák) (*January 28, 1891 in Prague, Bohemia - †January 30, 1972 in Chicago, Illinois, USA) was a Czech composer and conductor.
Jirák was born in Prague and became a pupil of Josef Bohuslav Foerster and Vítezslav Novák at the Charles University and at music academy in Prague .
From 1915 to 1918 he was the kapellmeister at the Hamburg Opera and worked from 1918 to 1919 as a conductor at the National Yheatre in Brno and Ostrava. From 1920 to 1930, he was a composition teacher at the Prague Conservatorium, and principal conductor of Czech broadcast until 1945.
In 1947, he emigrated to the USA, where from 1948 to 1967 a professor at Roosevelt University, Chicago and in 1967 a composition teacher at the Conservatory college in Chicago. He remained in this position until 1971.
Jirák's most famous opera was (Apollonius z Tyany (Apollonius of Tyana), later under the title Žena A Buh (a Mrs. and a God) (1912-1913). He wrote six symphonies and several symphonic variations. Inn 1952 he wrote a Symphonic Scherzo for volume. He also wrote many suites and overtures, numerous chamber-musical works, many preludes, joints and a Suite for organ, a Requiem, choirs, and song cycles. He was a popular and renowned musical theorist.
