Palacký University in Olomouc awarded an honorary doctorate to Emil Viklické this Friday. The renowned jazz pianist and composer was among the five dozen personalities that this university has honored with the highest award since 1990.
Viklický graduated from the local science faculty in the field of numerical mathematics. He received the title the day after his 75th birthday. People in Olomouc could commemorate his jubilee with a number of concerts during the year.
The awarding of the degree was proposed by the scientific council of the Faculty of Education. “Viklický is an unmissable personality of the Czech and international music scene of the 20th and 21st centuries. He is recognized by the music world, and naturally the academic community of his alma mater would also like to express its recognition to him,” explained Dean Vojtech Regec.
According to Rector Martin Procházka, although Viklický received his musical education while studying jazz at the American Berklee College of Music, he never forgot the Faculty of Natural Sciences in his native Olomouc and was always proud of his alma mater. “Thanks to this, the name of Palacký University regularly appeared and appears next to the name of Emil Viklický wherever his achievements as a jazz pianist and music composer were written and are still being written,” adds the rector.
Viklický described Friday’s ceremony as a special and very emotional moment. He remembered not only his studies, but also some pedagogues, for example the mathematician and composer Miroslav Jiroušek, who worked there from 1954 to 1971. He also supervised Viklický’s diploma thesis in algebra. “The consultations that took place at his place in a small house on Nová Street were ultimately extremely interesting. In addition to mathematics, we talked about music, about Richard Wagner, about the Tristanov chord and also about Schillinger’s musical method,” recalls Viklický.
He submitted the thesis in March 1971 and successfully defended it. It was also proposed for a doctorate. “However, I found out at the dean’s office that one of the conditions for obtaining it is passing another exam on Marxism. The choice was white. After all, I was not the first or the last to give up the idea of this academic degree,” adds the musician.
Emil Viklický with Palacký University Rector Martin Procházka. | Photo: CTK
Viklický is one of the most distinctive, individual and versatile figures of the Czech music scene. He started playing jazz in the mid-1960s as a student at the Olomouc gymnasium.
He drew more attention to himself in 1974, when he joined Karel Velebný’s SHQ. Not long after that, he concurrently became a member of the jazz rock group Energit. An important milestone in his work was the solo debut album V Holomóci mešte, recorded in 1977 and reflecting the melody of Moravian folk songs.
In the fall of the same year, Viklický went on a one-year study stay at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. He established many musician contacts there, which he then used in collaboration with American musicians: guitarist Bill Frisell, bassist Kermit Driscoll and drummer Vinton Johnson. He soon brought them to Czechoslovakia and recorded songs with them that were later released on Okno a Dveře records.
In the 1980s, Viklický devoted himself a lot to international cooperation. In addition to recordings with leading world jazzmen, he is known for his efforts to fuse folklore with jazz. He also devotes himself to serious and film music. He is the author of the operas The Plowman and Death, Faidra and Macha’s Diary or Hynka, how do you imagine it? or the jazz melodrama The Secret of Man to the lyrics of former president Václav Havel.
He currently performs with a trio, in which standards from different periods as well as his own compositions are complemented by special paraphrases of Moravian folklore, or in a duo with double bass player Miroslav Vitouš or saxophonist Pavle Hrubý. Last year he released the album Wangaratta, on which he is accompanied by trumpeter Miroslav Bukovský and saxophonist John Mackey, and most recently the album Songs recorded with singer Imogen Ryall.
The song Gone With Water, as performed by the Emil Viklický trio with the singer Imogen Ryall at the 10-year celebrations of the ČT art station. | Video: Czech Television
For his 75th birthday, he prepared a reissue of the album Za horama, za lesama…, which consists of eight original folklore works and two of Viklický’s original compositions.
Viklický recorded the album in the early 1990s in a trio with double bassist František Uhlíř, drummer Cyril Zeleňák and guests such as violinist Jiří Pavlica, dulcimer Milan Malina, saxophonist František Kop or singers Iva Bittová and Věra Domincová.
