Composer

Pianist

Actor

Director

He was born into an artistic family – his mother, father, both grandfathers, uncle, and aunt were actors. Living in a creative environment is Ondřej's nature and a matter of course. He started playing the piano at the age of five, and at seven, he began taking private lessons. After studying acting at the Prague Conservatory, he began actively working as an actor in film and television, but his passion for composing music also grew. Since 1999, he has been a member of the award-winning band Monkey Business, through which he collaborated with big names both domestically and internationally (Joan Baez, Glenn Hughes, Hiram Bullock, Fred Wesley, David Sanborn, etc.). In the theater, his greatest school was arrangement and orchestration of world-famous musicals (Finian's Rainbow, Funny Girl, My Fair Lady, etc.) and his own compositions of stage music – he has around eighty of them to his credit since 2000. He himself has authored six musicals. He thoroughly studied the scores of masters from a young age, and his work shows a natural continuity with tradition; his greatest composition teachers have always been Beethoven, Stravinsky, Ravel, Bernstein, Sondheim, Vaughan Williams, and John Williams. He devotes himself to concert music (three symphonies, Sinfonietta, Concerto for Orchestra, Golden Age Rhapsody for big band and symphonic orchestra, symphonic poems and suites, full-length ballet Kytice) and thanks to this, he can collaborate with leading orchestras in the Czech Republic and worldwide (Prague Symphony Orchestra, Czech National Symphony Orchestra, Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, Epoque Quartet, Thüringer Symphoniker, Yamagata Symphony Orchestra, Pardubice Philharmonic, Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava, Hradec Králové Philharmonic, Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic Zlín, etc.) and with prominent names in the music world (Radek Baborák, Adam Plachetka, Pavel Šporcl, Jan Kučera, Tomáš Netopil, Tomáš Brauner).

Ondřej always prepares the scores for film, television, and theater himself (with the exception of some songs from musicals). He has been twice awarded the Thalia Prize for his work in radio. His hobby is connecting music with acting; he has portrayed several musicians (Amadeus, Shostakovich, W.F. Bach, Cosme McMoon). He has narrated dozens of audiobooks and composed music for many of them. "An artist's work speaks for itself, not the number of awards and interviews about how well they do. Music is not a competition; it should bring joy and elevate the spirit." The public has only been able to become acquainted with Ondřej's visual work at two exhibitions so far.