Jaroslav Kricka was one of the best and most famous pupils of Vitezslav Novak. He was born in a East-Moravian village, the son of a rural schoolmaster, as he later sings in his song-cycle "Memories of the Old School" He spent most of his childhood in the Moravian region Horácko in a village of Maršovice at Nove Mesto in the heart of Czech-Moravian Highlands Moravia (hence the name of his formerly very popular "Grandmother‘s Waltz of Maršovice"). Having studied at the gymnasium of Nemecký /German/ Brod, later Havlickuv Brod, he had an ideal opportunity to imbibe the most authentic spirit of Havlicek\'s humourous and satirical poems (later set to music Karel Havlicek‘s "Tyrolean Elegies" and "King Lavra"). After graduating from the Prague Conservatory (1905) his music education was continued in Berlin (1905-6), and then he worked in Yekaterinoslav (now Dnepropetrovsk) as a music teacher for three years. While there he composed an orchestral Elegie na smrt Rimského-Korsakova (‘Elegy on the Death of Rimsky-Korsakov", 1908) and formed a friendship with Glazunov and Taneyev. He also conducted concerts of Czech music and contributed articles to Czech journals on Russian music. He got to know especially the children's song-cycle "Dětskaja" by M.P. Mussorgsky which inspired him to create during his lifelong compositional career many children's songs. He became a translator and promoter of Russian vocal music in the Czech lands, wrote about the Russian musical classics in Prague's musical revue. After returning home in 1909 he worked as a choirmaster, principally with the Prague Hlahol choir. With it he gave the premières of works by Novák (The Wedding Sheet) and Janáček (The Eternal Gospel), and of the oratorio Jan Hus (1920) by Jeremiáš. Later worked as the head of the Philharmonic Choir of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra (1922 - 30). In 1918 he was appointed professor of composition at the Prague Conservatory. He was later made rector of the conservatory, which office he held during the difficult years of the German occupation. The title of Merited Artist was bestowed on him by Czechoslovak communist government in 1957.  
During his long teaching career at the Conservatory he brought up a number of composers, of whom excelled especially Václav Trojan, Karel Janeček, Karel Konvalinka, Jan Kapr, Jarmil Burghauser, František Šauer and Ján Cikker (from Slovakia). After retiring he was living in a quiet mountain landscape in Červené Dvorce near Sušice in the Bohemian Forest.

Formal and expressive range of Křička's works is extremely broad ("From Passion to operetta" according to the composer's statement). As a conductor he was a staunch devotee and promoter of J. S. Bach, some of whose cantatas he performed for the first time in Czech lands. His admiration for the Russian music resembled that of Janacek's, as a composer, however, remained quite often indebted to his great teachers and examples V. Novak and J. B. Foerster.