PROF. MGA. MGR. MICHAL RATAJ, PH.D.

E-mail: michal.rataj@hamu.cz

Web: www.michalrataj.com

Phone: 234 244 147

Department:
  • Composition Department
  • Contemporary Music Section
  • Music and Dance Faculty
Consultation hours: Michal Rataj is a composer, sound performer and professor of composition at HAMU in Prague. His work brings together acoustic and electronic music, sound performance, film and intermedia art. For over twenty years he worked as a music director, producer and sound designer at Czech Radio, specialising in radio art and radio drama. He was a member of the international EBU Ars Acustica group and founder of the rAdioCUSTICA portal. His work has been recognised at Palma Ars Acustica, Prix Marulić and Prix Bohemia Radio. He is the author of chamber, orchestral and electronic music as well as scores for dozens of films and television projects. He has a long-standing collaboration with director Robert Sedláček, and gained international attention with his score for the Academy Award-winning documentary Mr. Nobody Against Putin. In 2025 the theatre piece Květy noci premiered, in which he served as both composer and sound performer. Since 2008 he has performed live — both solo and with other musicians — in projects exploring spatial sound. Recent performances include Prague Spring (2022, 2024), Ostrava Days (2023) and the SOČR at DOX project (2023). His music has been performed on various occasions in a number of countries in Europe and the United States. He studied musicology at Charles University and composition at HAMU in Prague under Ivan Kurz and Milan Slavický. In 2007–2008 he was a Fulbright fellow at the Centre for New Music and Audio Technology (CNMAT) at the University of California, Berkeley, with shorter study stays in the United Kingdom, Germany and Austria. Subjects here

COMPOSITION, ELECTRO-ACOUSTIC MUSIC, RADIOART, FILM MUSIC, SOUND STUDIES, SOUND PERFORMANCE

SUCCESSES & CVS

2025
Mr. Nobody Against Putin (soundtrack)
2025
Songs of Pipes (new album with Oskar Török)
2024
Pianofonia - commissioned by the Prague Spring Festival (together with Jan Trojan)
2024
Rub The Soul - new composer's album. https://michalrataj.bandcamp.com/album/rub-the-soul
2023
Načálo polunóščnici for soli, chamber female choir and large ensemble with surround electronics
2023
Letters From Sounds for trumpet solo, live electronics and large orchestra
2022
MOVIS piano concerto performed by Czech Philharmony & Ivo Kahánek & David Robertson at the Prague Spring Festival
2022
FLOATING for flute and live electronics premiered at MIXTUR, Barcelona
2022
LETTERS FROM SOUNDS - new CD with Oskar Török
2022
MIRRORS OF ZLÍN - public space intermedia instalation in the city of Zlín
2021
OFFSCREEN - album with Jan Trojan & Ivan Boreš
2021
Solos From Nothing (new album)
2020
A Study of Aphasia (NODO 2020, Ostrava, CZ)
2020
OSA prize for the most successful composer abroad
2019
MOVIS - concerto for piano and large orchestra (premiere Ostrava Days 2019)
2019
SEVER - the TV series soundtrack
2018
Sentenceless Sentence (new album)
2018
Temporis - cimbalom concerto with Santa Rosa Symphony
2017
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2017
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2016
Points-Rataj-Quintet, oceňovaný projekt v poli mezi jazzem a současnou elektronikou, www.points-rataj-quintet.com
2015
Interspace - čestné uznání za zvukovou kompozici Palma Ars Acustica (objednávka West Deutscher Rundfunk)
2015
1. cena Musica Nova za skladbu Small Imprints pro klarinet a live electronics
2012
Filmová hudba k televiznímu seriálu České století (P. Kosatík, R. Sedláček)
2009
1. cena Grand Prix Marulic za realizace rozhlasové hry Vojcek G. Büchnera
2008
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2007
Fulbright Scholarship, UC Berkeley, USA
Doktorát v oboru skladba a teorie skladby pod vedením Milana Slavického.
2005
Cena OSA pro nejúspěšnějšího skladatele do 30 let.
2003
Absolutorium kompozice na hudební fakultě AMU ve třídě prof. Ivana Kurze
2000
1. cena Generace za skladbu Pětkrát totéž pro flétnu a klavír
Absolutorium hudební vědy na FF UK v Praze

PUBLIKAČNÍ A TVŮRČÍ ČINNOST

:: ODBORNÉ PUBLIKACE ::

Michal RAtaj: Radioatelier: Czech radio space for acoustic art 2003–2022. Organised Sound , Volume 29 , Issue 1: Radio – A Space for Sonic Art , April 2024 , pp. 38 - 51.

Michal Rataj, Jan Trojan, Slavomír Hořínka, Soňa Vetchá: Zvuková imerze veřejného a privátního poslechového prostoru. ArteActa 2023, 10:25-54 | DOI: 10.62804/aa.2023.008

Michal Rataj: Hudební skladatel jako zvukový architekt veřejného prostoru. Souvislosti 4/2022, s. 27 - 35. Praha 2022

Michal Rataj: Poznámky k terminologii, in: Petr Ferenc, ed.: Ukryto v pásech: vybrané kapitoly z české elektroakustické hudební tvorby do roku 1989. Praha: Národní muzeum, s. 20 - 34.

Tomáš Dvořák, Slavomír Hořínka, Michal Rataj, Jan Trojan: Zvukoprostor, prostorozvuk. NAMU 2018.

Rataj, Michal. „Writing Sound: The Wacom Tablet – a Multifaceted Musical Instrument“. In: Koubová, Alice – Jobertová, Daniela (ed.). Artistic Research: Is There Some Method? Praha: Nakladatelství AMU, 2017.

Michal Rataj: Everyone can be composer today – full stop or question mark? Musicologica Brunensia, ppp 43-52. Brno 2017.

Michal Rataj: Počítač jako živý instrumentální part, in: Opus Musicum 2013/4, s 6 -16.

Michal Rataj, ed.: Zvukem do hlavy. Sondy do současné audiokultury. NAMU 2012.

Michal Rataj, Martin Flašar, Daniel Matej, ed.: Electronic music today: Where are we going and what are we doing? Masarykova univerzita 2015.

Michal Rataj, Gilberto Agostinho, Daniel Bartoš, Matouš Hejl, Jakub Rataj, Jan Trojan: Dotknout se zvuku, in: Opus Musicum 2015/4, s. 58 - 80.

Michal Rataj: Zvuk a význam v perspektivách současného vysokého hudebního školství a mediálních reálií radioartu, in: Július Fujak, ed.: Otáz(ni)ky hudobnej semiotiky a estetiky. Nitra 2010, s. 145 - 156

Michal Rataj: Electroacoustic Music and Selected Concepts of Radio Art. PFAU Verlag 2010, ISBN 978-3-89727-405-1

Petr Bakla: Michal Rataj – Building visual world without pictures. An Interview in: Czech Music, 1 / 2009, s. 3 – 14.

Lukáš Jiřička: Michal Rataj, in: HIS Voice 5/2008, s. 32 - 35.

Petr Šrámek: Mou snahou je vyjádřit gesto zvukem. Rozhovor s Michalem Ratajem, in: Souvislosti 1 / 2009, s. 179 – 190.

Michal Rataj: Elektroakustická hudba a vybrané koncepty radioartu. AMU & KANT, Praha 2007.

Michal Rataj: Prix Europe 2006 – 20 let evropské mediální špičky, in: DISK, 18, 12 / 2006, s. 146 – 148.

Michal Rataj: Několik poznámek k pluralitě v hudebním myšlení, in: Opus Musicum 5/2000, s. 31 –35

CV in PDF