Czech composer Petr Eben, whose wide variety of music has been performed around the globe, has died. He was 78.
Eben died late Wednesday at his home in Prague, his son Marek told the CTK news agency Thursday. He was battling an unspecified long-term illness.
Born Jan. 22, 1929, Eben showed a musical talent at early age. He was able to play piano at age 6 and organ at 9. A year later, he composed his first musical pieces.
After World War II, when he was interned by the Nazis in the Buchenwald concentration camp, he studied piano and composition at Prague's Academy of Music, and taught at Prague's Charles University and the Academy of Performing Arts.
From 1977-78, Eben was teaching composition at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England.
Throughout his career, he composed some 200 pieces, including works for organ and piano, orchestral and chamber compositions, masses, cantatas and music for children. Among them: the organ cycle "Job","Sunday Music", "Faust", the oratorio "Sacred Symbols" for the Salzburg Cathedral, "Windows" (4 movements according to Marc Chagall for trumpet and organ), and "Prague Te Deum."
He performed his music around the world, giving improvisational organ and piano concerts in such venues as Paris' Notre Dame, London's Royal Festival Hall and the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif.
He was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by France in 1991 and received a high Czech decoration, the Medal of Merit, in 2002.
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