Petr Vrana

Biography

Petr Vrána (16. 11. 1976) was born in Hranice and grew up in a small village Vysoka (in the Olomouc Region of the Czech Republic). Although he came from a non-musical family and started playing the violin quite late (at the age of 11), he gradually became a professional violinist and violin teacher. After graduating from the Conservatory of Pavel Josef Vejvanovsky in Kromeriz (1991 – 1997) he started his master´s studies at University of Ostrava (1997- 2001) with an recognized professor Zdenek Gola. From 2001 to 2013 he was a member of the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice and became a member of chamber music ensemble Corvus Quartet (since 2004). His desire and interest in working with young musicians led him to teaching on the Evangelical Academy Conservatory in Olomouc in 2011. He currently works there as a violin teacher and also head of the Department of string instruments. He is now also a member of the chamber ensemble Duo Vespral. After the establishment of Corvus Quartet in 2004, he began arranging and occasionally composing. Since the very beginning in 2004, he has been preparing music arrangements performed by Corvus Quartet. His work is mainly focused on music for string instruments and strongly inspired not only by classical music, but also by various genre derivatives of jazz, blues and rock music. He is represented as an author by OSA (Collective rights management society for musical works in Czech Republic) with which he has so far registered 74 copyright works. He is currently the author of many authorized arrangements of music by various composers, such as Leos Janacek, George Gershwin, Joe Zawinul, Ennio Morricone, Philippe Sarde, Herrmann Bernard, Monty Norman, Freddie Mercury, Pete Townshend, Ritchie Blackmore, James Hetfield, Robert McFerrin, Eric Clapton and many others. His original musical works include Fascination (2015) for string quartet, Psychedelic Fantasy (2016) for violin and viola, or Hommage a Gershwin (2015) for two violins.