Michal Macourek (born 1972) comes from a family of musicians. His grandfather Harry Macourek, a composer and conductor, led him to music from a very young age. From 1986 he studied at the Prague Conservatory in the piano class of
Prof. Emil Leichner and at the Jaroslav Ježek Conservatory in the conducting class of Prof. Karel Fiala. A year later he concurrently began studying composition with
Prof. Milan Jíra. At the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague he was a pupil of Prof. Marek Kopelent in composition and Prof. Radomil Eliška in conducting.
In 1992–2005 he worked as a teacher at the Prague Conservatoire. His compositions have been performed at several major festivals and recorded on CDs. As
a conductor he worked with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra until 1998, in the Czech Republic he cooperates with the Pilsen Philharmonic Orchestra and the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 1998 he co-founded and became an artistic director of the contemporary music ensemble Resonance, with which he recorded a profile ensemble CD with compositions by contemporary Czech composers (Piňos, Pokorný, Parsch, Zemek, Macourek). In 2018 he founded Collegium Modern Prague Orchestra, which he regularly performs with and which he has also recorded several CDs for Musical Media with. He is a professor of composition at the Jaroslav Ježek Conservatory. He also works on jazz and stage music (in collaboration with director Karel Weinlich) and is a music director at Czech Radio. He performs with his wife Kateřina in Duo Dacapo (flute, piano).
Titles for sale:
Spring Preludes for Piano