Ondrej Demo

PhDr. Ondrej Demo, CSc. was a Slovak ethnomusicologist, composer, editor, and organizer of musical life. He focused primarily on Slovak folk music and its popularization.

After the end of World War II, he enrolled at the Teacher’s Academy in Bratislava, where he graduated in 1948. He spent the first three years of his career as a teacher at primary schools in Klížska Nemá and Číčov. After completing his compulsory military service in 1953, he became an editor for the Folk Music Department of Czechoslovak Radio in Bratislava. While working, he studied at the Department of Music Education at the Pedagogical University in Bratislava under Professor Eugen Suchoň. At the Department of Musicology of the Faculty of Arts at Comenius University, under Professor Jozef Kresánek, he earned the title of Doctor of Philosophy in 1975. He completed external postgraduate studies in ethnomusicology at the Institute of Musicology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, also under Jozef Kresánek, and in 1983 defended his dissertation to earn the degree of Candidate of Arts.

From 1966 to 1993, Ondrej Demo was best known as the author, host, and editor of the radio series Klenotnica ľudovej hudby (The Treasury of Folk Music). In this series, he recorded and broadcast valuable folk music material from 275 Slovak villages as well as from Slovaks living abroad. He later published this material in the collections Z klenotnice slovenských ľudových piesní (1981) and Vianočné koledy, vinše a hry (1998, 2014).

He was the author and director of programs at major folklore festivals (Východná, Detva, Myjava) and served on expert juries at national and international folk music competitions. He initiated the international radio competition Prix de musique folklorique de Radio Bratislava, in which fifty European radio stations competed from 1970 to 1991 with recordings of folk music in both authentic and arranged forms. The competition was revived in 2003 as the Svetozár Stračina Grand Prix.

In 1976, he was one of the founding figures of the Orchestra of Folk Instruments (OĽUN) of Slovak Radio in Bratislava and became its first artistic director. For OĽUN, the Lúčnica choir, and various folk ensembles, Ondrej Demo arranged around 180 scores. In 1990, he became the artistic director and choirmaster of the John Paul II Choir in Vajnory.

Ondrej Demo was the author of several books, including Žatevné a dožinkové piesne (with Oľga Hrabalová, 1969), Spieva Janka Guzová (1995), Folklórna hudba v rozhlase na Slovensku (1998), and Pavol Tonkovič (2013). He also summarized the results of his 1973 folklore research in Vajnory in the collection Vajnory spievajú (2013). As co-author and editor, he contributed to the preparation of monographs such as Vajnory (1978), Myjava (1985), Cífer (1991), Branovo – história, život a tradície (2005), and Naše Vajnory (2008). He published various studies and articles mainly in journals such as Slovenská hudba, Slovenský národopis, Rytmus, and Tradícia a súčasnosť. He wrote about forty scripts for television documentaries on traditional culture and took part in the production of eighty music albums.

Ondrej Demo was the recipient of numerous awards, including the Golden Microphone (1986), the Gold Medal of the Východná Folklore Festival (1987), the Gold Medal of the Detva Folklore Festival (1987), the Jozef Murgaš Plaque (1996), and the Plaque of the City of Bratislava (2002). In 2005, he was granted honorary citizenship in Terchová, and in 2007 in Branovo.