Pavel Staněk was born 3 June 1927 in Prague. He studied at the Prague Conservatory, 1946-51. His principle instrument was the contrabass. He began his professional music career in 1950 with the National Ensemble for Dance and Song, first as contrabass player, and a year later as choral director. In 1954 he was appointed director of the Military Band of the Ministry of the Interior, his first position as leader of a large concert band. In 1961 he took a position for two years as conductor at the "Na Fidlovačce" Music Theater, serving concurrently as chorus and orchestra director at the CKD Praha Heavy Machine Works. His musical career took a fundamental change when he became chief music director at the Ostrava Station of the Czechoslovakian Broadcasting Network in 1963, a position he held until retirement in 1990. Here he served as music producer, drama director, arranger and composer. Since retirement he frequently appears as guest conductor of concert bands in northern Moravia (Krnov, Jeseník, Vítkovák, Hrabůvka, Kopřivnice) as well as Austria and Germany. His style of composition is drawn from many sources - Bohemian and Moravian folk music, modern popular styles, serious contemporary music including experimental techniques, as well as the music of previous periods. He has combined all of these stylistic elements into his own distinctive expressive melodic style and included jazz and pop elements, his own mastery of instrumental color and orchestration in his prolific musical creations.
