Alois Piňos

Alois Piňos (Born in October 2nd 1925 in Vyškov and died in September 19th 2008 in Brno) was a Czech composer, publicist, music organiser and teacher. He is considered to be among the founders of the Czech "new music" scene that was popular in the 1960s, and one of its most prominent leaders.

Life

Initially a graduate from the Forestry School in Brno, he studied music theory and composition privately with Vilém Blažek and Miroslav Barvík. He graduated from the Conservatory in Brno with Vilém Petrželka and finally at JAMU with Jaroslav Kvapil. From 1953 he worked at this school as a teacher of music theory and composition.

He was co-founder of "Creative Group A", "Orchestra for New Music", "Studio writers' association" "Camerata Brno", the art association "Q", the Company's electro-acoustic music and a member of the "Atelier '90 Prague", "Prague Art" talks and the Czech section of the International Society for Contemporary Music. He helped organise festivals like the "Exposition of Experimental Music" and "Exposition of New Music". He also taught master classes and lectures at universities and music schools at international conferences throughout Europe. In 1984-1994 he was Permanent Associate Professor at the International New Music Courses in Darmstadt and worked for Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln.

He brought up a whole generation of promising young composers at the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno. These include Miloš Štědroň, Petr Kofroň, Jiří Kollert, Daniel Forró and Ivo Medek.

Work

He composed works in many classical music genres, from chamber and vocal works to symphonic works. In addition, he was deeply interested in unconventional forms. He created musical happenings, a new musical theater, stage production and audiovisual compositions. As one of the first Czech composers he devoted himself to electro-acoustic music. He is also a pioneer in team composition. Together with Ivo Medek and Miloš Štědroň, he founded a compositional team that created several interesting collective compositions.

In his early career his work was characterized by harsh and dissonant sounds with a tendency to present the grotesque, and also a bizarre specific humour. In his later work, there were other subtly delicate and fragile positions that were characterised by freedom of sound, peculiar melodies, and human existential and general spiritual themes.

In addition to compositional and pedagogical activities, he also dealt with music theory. His best-known work is the monograph The Tone Group (Prague 1971, English Brno 2001). Between 1969 and 1989 his work was silenced by the communist regime for ideological reasons.

Discography

• Alois Piňos / Pavel Blatný / Miloslav Ištvan / Miloš Štědroň - Concerto For Orchestra And Tape / Appeal / Plays / Six Villanellas For String Orchestra ‎(LP) - 1989
• Alois Pinos, Petr Pokorný (2), Petr Eben, Miloslav Ištvan, Milan Knížák, Francesco Lotoro - Praha '68 ‎(CD, Album) - 1999
• Miloslav Ištvan Quartett, Composers Of Group "A", Pololáník* / Berg* / Ištvan* / Novák* / Piňos* - Works For String Quartet ‎(CD, Album) - 2013

Text adapted from the Czech wikipedia page