Karel Ančerl

A distinguished Czech conductor, Karel Ancerl was born in 1908. Having studied conducting and composition at the Prague Conservatory, he was Hermann Scherchen's assistant conductor in a 1931 production of Alois Hába's opera The Mother. Ancerl later studied conducting with Scherchen and worked with Talich. In 1933, Ancerl started conducting for Prague Radio, also establishing himself as a stage conductor. When Nazi Germany occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939, Ancerl was dismissed from his job and interned in concentration camps. The only member of his family to survive concentratio...