I have remained truthful…
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Marek Kopelent was born April 28, 1932 in Prague in the family of lawyer JUDr. František Kopelent. His mother was a French teacher, and Marek and his sister thus attended French kindergarten, elementary school as well as grammar school. Marek’s extraordinary talent for music was discovered when he was a little boy and his parents supported him. At first he studied piano with their family friend JUDr. Kubáně and later he went on to study at the Academy of Performing Arts under professor Řídký. After completing his studies he began working as a music editor in the SNKLHU publishing house in 1955. From the late 1950s he intensely focused on the so-called new music. Together with friends he formed the Prague Society of New Music and in 1961 he was one of the co-founders of the ensemble Musica Viva Pragensis which was actively presenting this music genre to the public. Their musical compositions began to be accepted at international festivals. In 1969 Marek won a one-year scholarship (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst) in West Berlin. The situation in Czechoslovakia has radically changed during his absence. The new music was not included among the supported trends in music and its composers faced various restrictions. In 1971 he was fired from the publishing house and he had hard time looking for another job. The ensemble Musica Viva Pragensis became banned. Marek Kopelent was expelled from the Union of Czech Composers and his work was officially not allowed to be performed. Kopelent’s compositions could thus be performed only abroad. In 1976 he got a job as an accompanist in the music school in Radotín, where he worked until 1991. Then he became employed as a professor of composition at the Music Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts. In 2012 the president awarded him with the Medal of Merit.