Karel Ančerl

Karel Ančerl (April 11, 1908 – July 3, 1973) was a Czechoslovak conductor and composer, known especially for his performances of contemporary music and his interpretations of music by Czech composers.

Ančerl was born into a wealthy Jewish family in the village of Tučapy in South Bohemia. After graduating from the Prague Conservatory, he continued his conducting studies with Hermann Scherchen and Václav Talich. He was assistant conductor at the Munich premiere of Alois Haba's quarter-tone opera Mother (1931) and conducted the orchestra of the avant-garde theatre "Liberated Wild" in Prague (1931–1933). His conducting work for Czechoslovak Radio was interrupted by World War II, resulting in his imprisonment with his family in the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942 and then in Auschwitz in 1944. Unlike his wife and young son, Ančerl survived Auschwitz.

After the war, Ančerl conducted for Radio Prague until 1950, when he became artistic director of the Czech Philharmonic, a post he held successfully for eighteen years. After the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Ančerl emigrated to Toronto, Canada, where he served as music director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra until his death in 1973.

As a conductor, Ančerl helped promote a distinctly Czech orchestral sound, both at the Czech Philharmonic and elsewhere. Highly regarded as a studio artist as well, Ančerl made a wide range of recordings for the Supraphon label, including repertoire by various Czech composers (remastered in the Karel Ančerl gold edition).