Jirí Linha | Composers

Jiri Linha was born in Prague in 1930. He began playing the violin at the age of six and a year later joined the "Prague Philharmonic Children's Choir" as a boy soprano. Towards the end of the Second World War he sang as a baritone in the "Czech Choir" conducted by Jan Kühn. Both ensembles were professional radio choirs that regularly performed major symphonies, cantatas and oratorios together with the Czech Philharmonic and the Prague Symphony Orchestra. Working under the direction of famous Czech and world-renowned conductors shaped Jiri Linha's ideas of art, style and sophistication. After graduating from high school in 1948, he studied at the pedagogical faculty of Charles University and from 1953 was a music teacher at the high school. After a year he began to work as a choirmaster and conductor and later also as a successful composer. In 1961, he switched to the artistic ensemble of the Ministry of the Interior, and towards the end of 1963 he presented his first singing group to the public. The "Linha Singers" worked for two years, often for Czechoslovakian television, as background singers on recordings and concerts by famous artists. In 1966, the group and the Ministry of the Interior suddenly parted ways. In 1967 he founded the "Linha Singers" as an independent ensemble with its own repertoire and specific musical language. After two short engagements in the "Rokoko Theater" and with the "Artistic Ensemble of the Army", Linha managed to bring the group under the administration of the "State Theater Studio" in 1970. For ten years he has been able to expand concert activities at home and abroad with the "Linha Singers" and organize youth concerts, work with specialists in the fight against drug addiction and experiment with well-known contemporary composers on music projects. After the dissolution of the "State Theater Studio" in 1980, the "Linha Singers" came under the direction of the Prague Symphony Orchestra for another 13 years. In 1993, far-reaching social changes led to dismissals from the ensembles of the Prague Symphony Orchestra. In order to preserve and reorganize the "Linha Singers", the Orfeus Foundation was established, which was recognized as a non-profit organization from 1998. Jiri Linha was the first director and at the same time the musical director.