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Internationally renowned conductor Zdeněk Mácal was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia on January 8, 1936. Over the course of his career, he worked with all of the major orchestras around the world and served as chief conductor for the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, the NDR Orchestra of Hanover, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, and the Czech Philharmonic. Graduating with top honors from the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in 1960, he became principal conductor of the Prague Symphony Orchestra and won the International Conducting Competition in Besançon, France in 1965 and, the following year, he won the Dimitri Mitropoulos International Music Competition in New York City. After the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, he and his family left his homeland, and he began his successful international career. After working with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, he made his London debut in February 1969 at the Royal Festival Hall. He then took his first chief conductor position in the West and worked with the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne from 1970-1974 before serving the same position for the NDR Orchestra of Hanover, Germany. Zdeněk Mácal made his US debut in 1972 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and became artistic advisor for the San Antonio Symphony as well as principal conductor for the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago, Illinois. In the 1980s, he worked with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (Australia) and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. In 1993, he became musical director for the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, a position he held until 2002. He returned to his home country at the end of the communist regime and became chief conductor for the Czech Philharmonic. Zdeněk Mácal died on October 25, 2023, at the age of 87. He left behind a vast recorded legacy that included releases such as Dvorak: The Wild Dove / The Golden Spinning Wheel (1962), Mozart: Piano Concertos (1968), Dvorak: Konzert Für Violoncello (1972), Bartók: Violin Concerto No. 2 (1981), Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 (1983), Czech Classics (2000), Mahler: Symphony No. 5 (2007), and Smetana: My Country (2017).
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