Foerster, Josef Bohuslav

Josef Bohuslav Foerster (1859-1951) was a Czech composer and teacher. He first began teaching music privately, and from 1903 he worked as a professor of composition at the New Conservatory in Vienna and from 1919 at the Prague Conservatory. As a composer, Foerster touched all musical genres and created a vast body of work. He is ranked among the leading composers of the so-called Czech Modernism, alongside J. Suk, V. Novák and O. Ostrčil. He was artistically versatile and, in addition to music, he also worked as a painter, playwright, poet and writer.