Eduard Tomaštík
Eduard Tomaštík is a conductor, tenor, art director, and cimbalom player. After graduating from the Bratislava Conservatory, he went on to study choral conducting with Josef Pančík and orchestral conducting with Otakar Trhlík and Jan Zbavitel at the Janáček Academy of Music and Arts in Brno. He did his doctoral studies in musicology at Masaryk University in Brno, focusing on music in Moravia in the 17th century, particularly the life and work of Giovanni Battista Alouisi. He regularly contributes his research activities in this field to clarifying musical-historical relations in Europe, based on a detailed study of contemporary sources. From 1996 to 1998, he was the assistant chorus master with the Janáček Theatre in Brno and the Brno Academic Choir.
In 1998, he founded the chamber ensemble Societas Incognitorum, focusing on vocal and vocal-instrumental music of the 16th and 17th centuries. With this ensemble, of which he is still the artistic director, he has performed a number of concerts and studio premieres in cooperation with Czech TV and many radio stations. His discography features many foreign and domestic honours, including interesting collaborations with leading performers of early music, such as Stephen Stubbs, Schola Gregoriana Pragensis, and Barbara Maria Willi. His recent interest in genre overlaps in old music, seeking common denominators with contemporaryv musical genres, resulted in a unique collaboration with the Slovak jazz trio Pacora. This project, linking Renaissance vocal polyphony with elements of swing and jazz, brings Renaissance music to everyday contemporary listeners and has enjoyed great recognition in professional circles. He lectures in master classes focusing on early music and is a conductor and choirmaster cooperating with various vocal and orchestras at home and abroad. He is a founding member of the musical trio PONK, whose main objective is to use modern methods to present traditional Moravian folk music to the general public.