Jan Mach

Biography

“My goal is to play at the highest level as long as possible.”

The clarinettist, chamber musician, teacher, and graduate of doctoral studies at Prague’s Academy of Performing Arts got his first musical training in Jilemnice. It was there that after seven years of violin lessons, he fell in love with the clarinet. He completed his studies at the Brno Conservatoire under Professor Lubomír Bartoň, then he furthered his education under Vlastimil Mareš and Jiří Hlaváč at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, where he himself now teaches. “When things are going your way, you enjoy yourself—your career takes care of itself”, he says. He perfected his art at courses in (Austria), Telč, and Aix en Provence (France), and he studied for half a year in the German city Karlsruhe under the teachers Otto Kronthaler and Wolfgang Meyer.

He has taken part successfully at many competitions including the Kroměříž Conservatoire Competition (1993), Jeunesses Musicales Romania, and the prestigious ARD Competition in Munich (2003). “Competitions are always a stimulus that gives one a certain confidence if one does well. At the same time, the reaction of the public and the jury can give you an awareness that although you may have many doubts, what you are doing is not in vain, and you’re not doing it badly”, he explains. We also see him regularly on the concert stage in solo roles. He has appeared with the Munich Chamber Orchestra, Inter Camerata, and the Prague Symphony Orchestra. His collaborations with the Pražák Quartet and the Zemlinsky Quartet have also resulted in several recordings (Clarinet Quintet by Jindřich Feld, works by F. V. Kramář).

He has fond memories of the Czech Philharmonic from his student days, when he was amazed by a performance of Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto with Sabine Meyer, but he had to wait for the chance to join the orchestra—the clarinet section did not hold auditions for a long time. Therefore, it was not until age 40 that he achieved “the goal of many musicians: to become a part of an ensemble of the highest quality”. Meanwhile, he played at the F. X. Šalda Opera Theatre in Liberec, briefly at the State Opera in Prague, and for ten years with the Prague Symphony Orchestra.

In 2003 he joined the oboist Jan Souček and the bassoonist Václav Vonášek in founding Trio Arundo, with whom he won the Czech Chamber Music Society Prize. They have recorded a four-part arrangement of the Goldberg Variations, and they also appear as the Arundo Quartet. As a teacher he has led masterclasses in Žirovnice, Vardø, Wroclaw, and now in Olomouc.

Besides music, he enjoys technology and builds computers. He also enjoys working in his garden.