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Vaclav Halek was born in Prague in 1937. He studied the piano and music composition at the Prague conservatory and the Musical Faculty of the Academy of Music and Drama. He lives in Prague. Among his works are: "Mycocosmical Symphony", "Bechyne Suite", oratorio "La Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri", three piano concertos, two string quartets, a great number of songs including a whole series of pieces for children's choirs, music for the stage and the film. He co-operates with radio and television. So far he has composed music about approximately 1,650 species of fungi.

Ing. Miroslav Smotlacha About the Author

I have known Vaclav for many years. He has been interested in nature, and especially in mushrooms since his youth. This brought him to the Mushroom Consultation Bureau and to our Czech Mycological Society, where he has been a member of the Board for a long time.

His interest in fungi has always been profound and he has studied them seriously. He has published a whole series of specialized articles in the Magazine of Czechoslovak Mushroom Pickers. Randomly I can mention the article published in 1981 "The Experience with a less known Cortinarius" (it was Cortinarius varius). Since he began picking mushrooms, Vaclav Halek has been fascinated by the extraordinary colourfulness, variety of shapes and growth, and diverse smells of fruit bodies of fungi. Another very interesting article, dealing with the less known species of the genus Lyophyllum, was published in 1983. It concerned Lyophyllum immundum. I mention this also because of the Czech designations of mushrooms being sometimes almost bizarre (Lyophyllum immundum is called "liha necista" in Czech, the word "necista" meaning "unclean"), which attracts Vaclav, too. This all brought Vaclav Halek, a musician heart and soul, to setting individual species of fungi to music.

The first musical composition about mushrooms was published in 1993 - "Mushrooms for Violin". It concerned fourteen species of fungi, which Vaclav found and took photographs of with his friends from the Czech Mycological society. It was just a small portion of the hundreds of species he set to music in the course of many years. Many of the compositions have been performed at concerts for special guests in our headquarters in Karmelitska street, during lectures at the university in Trojanova street, and elsewhere in and outside Prague. They were performed on the television, the radio, and also in the Labyrint theatre in Prague Smichov.

It has always been interesting for me to observe Vaclav when he sees in our Mushroom Consultation Bureau or at a mushroom exhibition or when he himself finds during his walks in the woods a new fungus species, not set to music yet. He immediately retires to a quiet place in order not to be disturbed, he thinks, examines, breathes in, smells the fruit bodies, and composes, and composes. This way he has set to music a great number of fungi species. This is a world rarity. I don't know of anyone else in our republic or in the world examining and processing individual species of fungi through the medium of music!