Biography

Zdenek Bartak was born in Prague in 1954. As a child he started studying music /piano playing/ at the Art School, later he continued his studies at the State Conservatory in Prague and his majors were composing, piano and tuba playing. Still as a teenager he was performing in public with the orchestra of his father Zdenek Bartak Sr. who used to be a popular big band leader mainly in the fifties, sixties and seventies.
Later he founded his own band and toured successfully Czechoslovakia with several well known Czech solo singers and actors. At the same time Zdenek Bartak also started composing and right from the beginning his songs were hits performed by famous Czech singers. Several of his songs written for the very popular Czech singer Michal David were even awarded golden and platinum discs and the sales of the respective sound carriers released by Supraphon Record Company reached between 500.000 and 1000.000 units. This success was followed by an offer to perform with “Kroky”, that time the most popular Czech pop band, Zdenek Bartak accepted it and for three years has been touring with them Czechoslovakia and several other European countries as keyboard player and singer.
In 1989 Zdenek Bartak stopped performing and started his career as a composer, especially of film and theater music. He became a sole composer of the well known Czech film director Jaroslav Soukup and in the years 1979 -–1999 wrote music for all his 16 feature films, several of them like “Backstreet Love” “Discostory I+II”, “Once Upon a Time There Was a Cop I,II+III” have been attended by millions of film viewers, won several awards and have been screened also in other European countries. Zdenek Bartak is still composing popular songs for Czech singers and he is cooperating with the biggest names of the Czech pop music like Karel Gott, Dagmar Patrasova or Tereza Pergnerova and Jakub Smolik. Zdenek Bartak also writes and produces music for successful TV series – among others let’ s name the recent ones – “The Land Gone Wild”, 12 parts’ series directed by Hynek Bocan for the Czech TV in 1997 that will be followed by another 8 parts in the beginning of 2001, “Hotel Herbich” 13 parts’ series also directed by Hynek Bocan in 1999 and he cooperated as producer and composer on the 52 parts’ animated series for children “Ferda”, presented by TV Nova in 1998 an 1999 and accompanied also by a successful soundtrack album. The successful musical “The Angel with a Devil Inside” Zdenek Bartak composed together with Jiri Svoboda . It was first staged in November 1998 in the Prague Musical Theater and has been on the program ever since this time. Zdenek Bartak gave more than 5.000 concerts and more than 1.000 of his compositions have been recorded and released on LPs, MCs and CDs. He wrote music for 26 feature films, 10 TV series, various children films and cartoons, many TV programs, stage music and music for advertisements. More than 20 CDs with music of Zdenek Bartak have been released abroad.
So far his most important achievement abroad has been his music for the musical “The Tempest” /after the famous play by William Shakespeare/ commissioned by Seoul Performing Art Company in South Korea for the Seoul Opera by the occasion of Millennium Celebrations in South Korea. This musical won the Grand Prize for the best Korean musical of the year 1999 , special prize for the best music and 6 other prizes in various categories . This extraordinary performance has been performed in regular cycle-periods in the largest Seoul theatre since its premiere in November 1999 and also a soundtrack album has been released in Korea. The latest projects of Zdenek Bartak are - his music for a new musical for children “Cinderella” (after the famous fairy tale) that have been performed in the Prague Millennium Theatre , a historical – fantastic musical from the time of the emperor Rudolf II. called "Faustina" directed by Vaclav Matejka that is supposed to be staged in Prague next year and a new musical retro - comedy from the 30´s and 40´s - "Christian" after the famous Czech cult movie that is supposed to be premiered in Prague in September 2002. The latest musical of Zdenek Bartak “Romeo and Juliet” produced by Seoul Performing Arts Company was premiered in the Seoul Opera in August 2002 and the performances are being repeated in Seoul and other Korean cities due to its enormous success. Zdenek Bartak has been cooperating with the Italian mega-selling artist Andrea Bocelli and composed one track (E mi manchi tu) for his latest successful album “Cieli di Toscana”.