Life story
Ján Cikker was born in Banská Bystrica, where he also completed his secondary education. He studied composition and conducting at the Prague Conservatory, conducting further in Vienna under Felix von Weingartner and composition at the master school under Vítězslav Novák.
From 1939 onwards he lived in Bratislava. He was a professor of music theory at the State Conservatory, after the war served as dramaturg of the Slovak National Theatre opera for three years, and from 1951 for more than twenty years was a professor of composition at the Academy of Performing Arts.
He ranks among the leading representatives of Slovak musical modernism. The focus of his work is opera — Juro Jánošík, Beg Bajazid, Resurrection, The Play of Love and Death, Coriolanus, The Judgment, The Siege of Bystrica and From the Life of Insects. In 1979 Cikker received the UNESCO Prize for Music.
He died in Bratislava in December 1989. He is buried in the Slávičie údolie cemetery.
Constellation of Life
Important milestones that shaped their journey.