Master of Fine Arts Mario Klemens

* 1936

  • “It was great when the extended family gathered, for example on Christmas, and someone would play the violin, my dad would play the violoncello, and grandma the piano. I also tried to play the clarinet. A neighbour would come to play the contrabass with us, and one year we had a harp, too, because my aunt took it for repair to Hradec, and she stopped by before carrying it to Liberec. My dad had a huge archive of sheet music, various symphonies, operas, operettas, and ordinary salon music. We would play and the women would sit in the door and listen and knit. That was our Christmas entertainment, and it was great, just great!”

  • “At first they sent a state-appointed administrator there. In 1950, when dad was sick and he was in hospital, two men unexpectedly came there and they broke all the machines that were there with sledge hammers. They only carried away what they needed, some engines, non-ferrous metals and letter types, and they loaded it onto a truck and went away. That was the end of the printing company. Dad then worked in a communal company, and he died when he was sixty-two.”

  • “In Poděbrady in 1946 there was Dr. Jahoda, who was a naturalist, and Prof. Filip, who was a cardiologist, and together they established the College of King Jiří of Poděbrady. They had been in a concentration camp together, and there they got the idea that they could establish a school modelled after English colleges. They started a college in the chateau. There were Milan Jirásek, Václav Havel, Miloš Forman, and we were like the Seven Dwarfs, and the eight one, the Snow White, was Miloš, who made us get up for exercise every morning and we hated him for that.”

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    Praha, 12.06.2015

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dobová fotka portrét.jpg (historic)
Master of Fine Arts Mario Klemens
zdroj: archiv pamětníka, foto: Petr Jedinák

  Mario Klemens was born October 3, 1936 in Chlumec nad Cidlinou. His father was a printer and journalist, and his mother worked as a shop assistant in the local confectionery until her marriage, and later she worked in the ČSAD bus company. Mario‘s family was deeply engaged in theatre and music. His grandmother led a music school in Chlumec, and his uncles and aunts were professionally involved in theatre and music as well. Already as a little boy, Mario learnt to play the piano, oboe, clarinet, and violin. In 1947 he was admitted to an elite eight-year grammar school in Poděbrady, which was modelled after English grammar schools. Among his schoolmates were boys who later became important personalities, such as Miloš Forman, Václav Havel or Milan Jirásek. However, the school functioned for only two years, and when it was closed down following a school system reform, the students continued studying at a regular grammar school and an eleven-year-school. Mario graduated in 1954. Then he went to study conducting under V. Smetáček at the State Conservatoire in Prague, from which he graduated in 1959. He briefly worked in Liberec as a teacher, and in 1961 he was admitted to the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (AMU). In 1966 he won an international competition for conductors in Besançon. Even before completing his studies, he was offered to work as a conductor in the J. K. Tyl Theatre in Pilsen. While in Pilsen, he also led the Orchestral Association of West Bohemian Teachers which played oratory music as well as concert compositions. In 1970 he went to work for the Czechoslovak State Ensemble of Folk Songs and Dances and he began cooperating with the foremost music ensembles (Czech Philharmonic, Prague Symphony Orchestra (FOK), Slovak Philharmonic, and others). Two years later he went to Košice in Slovakia, where he worked as a conductor of the Košice Philharmonic until 1976. After his return to Prague he began to teach conducting and orchestra play at the Prague Conservatoire. In 1979 he became a conductor in the FISYO (Film Symphonic Orchestra), and he held this position until 1990 when the orchestra became disbanded. With this ensemble he recorded music to more than 150 Czech and foreign films. In 1990-1994 he taught at the Prague Conservatoire. At present he collaborates with many Czech and foreign recording companies.