Jindřich Vácha

Instrument
violin

“I enjoy playing music that has meaning.”

Music was an ever-present part of René Vácha’s childhood. His mother loved singing folk songs and playing the piano, as did his sister, who was two years older. It was probably this musical atmosphere at home that inspired him to ask for an instrument of his own. “I started playing the violin when I was four. By the time I was fifteen, my mother had decided that the conservatoire was the only place for me. There, Professor Jaroslav Ruis convinced me that the viola was the most beautiful instrument, and from then on, my life followed a musical path,” Vácha recalls of his switch from violin to viola.

He went on to study the viola at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague under Milan Škampa. During his studies, he also spent a year at the Belarusian State Conservatoire in Minsk, where he studied with Vadim Skibin. He later had an opportunity to experience teaching himself, serving as a viola professor at the Pardubice Conservatoire during the 1986/87 academic year.

A prizewinner at the Hradec nad Moravicí competition, Vácha devoted much of his career, both during and after his studies, to chamber music. He was a member of Pro Arte Antiqua Nova, Jan Šimon’s ensemble of historical violas and viols specialising in historically informed performances of Baroque music. He was also a founding member of Agon, with which he performed extensively in the Czech Republic and abroad. As a member of the ensemble, he gave the Czechoslovak concert premieres of solo works by Philip Glass (Strung Out), Steve Reich (Violin Phase) and Morton Feldman (Music of Silence for viola and piano), alongside numerous ensemble compositions by Czech and international composers. These included a production of Glass’s opera The Fall of the House of Usher at Prague’s National Theatre.

Together with cellist Vojtěch Havel, Vácha formed an improvisational duo that, in addition to giving its own concerts, performed several improvisation programmes with Alan Vitouš and Jiří Stivín. He was also among the earliest and longest-serving members of Stivín’s Collegium Quodlibet.

As a member of the Michal Hromek Consort, he performed on the violin, viola and viola d’amore, appearing in numerous concerts and recording several albums. The most commercially successful of these was Celtic Guitar, which was awarded a Gold Disc.

With fellow Czech Philharmonic musicians J. Dvořák and J. Zelba, Vácha founded the chamber ensemble Czech Baroque Soloists. The group gave numerous concerts and rounded off its activities with a recording devoted to French Baroque music. He also co-founded the Czech Philharmonic Cimbalom Ensemble, serving as its lead violinist and focusing primarily on traditional folk songs from the Horňácko region of Moravia.

Vácha joined the Czech Philharmonic in 1989. “I attended Czech Philharmonic concerts throughout my years at the conservatoire, and the orchestra got so deeply under my skin that I never wanted to play anywhere else. Getting in was another matter, though. It took me three attempts,” he admits.

Now preparing to retire from professional musical life, Vácha nevertheless hopes that music will remain a source of enjoyment. Even if that means nothing more than picking up a guitar and playing well-loved campfire songs at home with his family.