Václav Nelhýbel

Václav Nelhybel (* September 24 1919 in Polanka nad Odrou, Czechoslovakia; † 22 March 1996 in Scranton, Pennsylvania) was an American composer and conductor of Czech origin.

Life

Václav Nelhybel studied from 1938 to 1942 composition and conducting at the Prague Conservatory and musicology at the University of Prague and the University of Fribourg ( Switzerland ). Most recently, he was a professor at the University of Scranton.

After the Second World War, he was a composer and conductor of the Swiss Radio DRS and taught at the University of Fribourg. In 1950 he became the first music director of Radio Free Europe in Munich and remained there until he completely moved to the USA in 1957.

He first lived for several years in New York before moving to Ridgefield, later to Newton, State of Connecticut, to settle in the region of Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1994. In 1962 he became an American citizen.

His oeuvre comprises some 600 works, of which about 400 were printed and published. He has received numerous awards and prizes for his work, so in 1954 the price of the International Music and Dance Festival in Copenhagen, Denmark, for his ballet In the Shadow of the Limetree, the 1st prize of the Ravitch Foundation in New York for his opera A Legend, the 1978 Award from the Academy of Wind and Percussion Arts. Four U.S. universities awarded him an honorary doctorate title.

Works

Works for Orchestra

Works for wind

Works for Organ

• Concerto No.. 1 for Organ and Orchestra Woodwinds without
• Concerto No.. 2 for Organ and Orchestra Woodwinds without
• Concerto No.. 3 for Organ, Piccolo Trumpet and Timpani

Choral works

Stage Works

Books and writings

• Peter Boonshaft: Vaclav Nelhybel a biographical study and survey of his Compositions with at analysis for performance of Caucasian passacaglia. University of Hartford, 1991 ( thesis).
• Peter Michaelides: Vaclav Nelhybel. Composer for Concert Band. In: Music Educators Journal 54, 1968, 8, ISSN 0027-4321, pp. 51-53.