The composer Jan Kapr had devoted himself to music from his early childhood. After a serious injury at the age of 16, he did so exclusively. He graduated at the Prague Conservatory and then in composition at its senior school under the professors Jaroslav Ridky and Jaroslav Kricka. After the graduation he was engaged as a music producer of Radio Prague for 7 years, in 1950-52 he was the chief editor of the publishing house Orbis. In 1961-72 he was employed as a teacher in composition at Janacek Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, and he had educated a number of the foremost Czech composers, including Milan Slavicky and Evzen Zamecnik. Jan Kapr is also the author of several outstanding theoretical assays and of the book "Konstanty" (Constants), giving an individual synthesis of contemporary musical trends. The centre of his life-long activity, however, lies in his compositional work. In Jan Kapr's compositional output of the forties and the fifties the theme of patriotic love of the native country (The Hymn on the Native Country, The Home) was prevailing and the author' s attitude to subjects of sport is also showing up there (Marathon, The Olympic Symphony). In post-war years Kapr had also composed a great number of film music scores. His extensively tonal idiom, characteristic of this period, had changed substantially during the sixties, the composer began to be interested in modern compositional techniques, devoted an increased attention to the sonic colour. He investigated the articulatory possibilities of various instruments and of the human voice (Exercises for Gydli, Testimony, Rotation 9, Oscillation a.o.), he experimented with the then new sonic resources and their combinations together with the traditional ones (e.g. The Ciphers, with the share of electronic sounds). During this period many significant chamber works came into existence, and since the seventies also monumental works have been created, synthetizing the author' s life-long tendency towards new complexity. Besides extensive symphonic and vocal-symphonic works (7th symphony "The Scenery of Childhood", 8th symphony "Campanae Pragenses", 9th symphony "Josef Manes" and the 10th symphony "Lanzhotska"), also important vocal compositions came into existence, inspired by stimulations both from world (Guten Morgen, Stern, Vendenges) and Czech literatures (The Astronomical Clock of Manes), along with a number of remarkable chamber works (Chess Sonata for 2 pianos, 4th Piano Sonata, 8th String Quartet, Woodcuts, Colours of Silence etc.). Jan Kapr's structurally and sonically rich idiom in this later period was getting always more expressive emotional urgency. Some of Kapr's compositions from his mature period had become internationally known. Exercises for Gydli, Dialogues for flute and harp and a number of author's following chamber and vocal works have reached numerous repeats in many countries, his compositions were successful at the International Compositional Tribune UNESCO, having become the subject of interest with domestic and foreign publishers and interpreters. Kapr's compositions have also been included into radio broadcasts of many countries: one of the most significant successes of Kapr's production was in this respect in 1980 the Munich concert and simultaneously the radio world premiere of his 8th symphony "Campanae Pragenses" in the series of concerts of the Bavarian radio programme Musica viva.