Skladatel Jan Vičar a analýza jeho folklorního triptychu pro smíšený sbor na české, moravské a slezské lidové texty Široko daleko

Jan Vičar, native of Olomouc (*1949) belongs to a group of Czech composing music theorists, historians and educators, such as university professors Karel Janeček, Zdeněk Blažek, Karel Risinger, Jaroslav Smolka, Miloš Štědroň and Vladimír Tichý. Also he gained university education in both disciplines – in composition and musicology. Great scope of his interests and abundance of scientific, artistic and organizational activities are the characteristic features of his personality. After studying musicology and the Czech language at the Philosophical Faculty of Palacký University in Olomouc and in parallel accordion at the Conservatory in Ostrava (from both he graduated in 1972), he became a lecturer at the Olomouc Department of Musicology and Music Education with Prof. Robert Smetana. In preparation for the career of a composer, he continued studying composition at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno (with Zdeněk Zouhar, 1976–1978), and at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (with Jiří Dvořáček, 1979–1981), which was followed by a post-graduate course in music theory with Karel Risinger (1981–1983). In the mid-eighties he moved from Olomouc to Prague, where he taught music aesthetics at the Academy of Performing Arts and worked for the journal Hudební rozhledy [Music Review]. At the beginning of the nineties, he contributed to the reopening of the Department of Musicology at Olomouc Philosophical Faculty and became its head. Throughout his career, he divides his creative activities between musicology, university teaching and composing. His work consists of about sixty compositions in all genres of classical music, but the greatest success he achieved in composing for children, female, male and mixed choirs. An analyzed folklore triptych Široko daleko [Far and Wide] on Czech, Moravian and Silesian folk lyrics represents this line of his work.