Evžen Illín

Evžen Illín was a Czech composer and musician from Slovakia. He played the bassoon and was devoted to composing mainly stage and film music.

Illín grew up in the South Bohemian town of Bechyně, where his father, Evžen Illín Sr., was a member of a band. He taught his son to play the violin and used to take him among musicians. He graduated from the Secondary Industrial School of Ceramics and, in addition to his father, also acquired the basics of music at the music school in Tabor. To study at the conservatory in Prague, he had to earn money by playing in various ensembles, e.g. in a theatre ensemble, where he learned to play the saxophone and at the same time learnt about theatre. After the conservatory he continued his studies in composition at university. For a while he worked as a professional player in the Karol Vlach Dance and Swing Orchestra, but then he focused almost entirely on composing.

 He began with the composition music for radio plays ( Janíček s voničkou, 1954; Únor bílý, 1956; Zlaté kapradí, 1961) and music for literary programmes. Later it was mainly variety, dance, stage, film and classical music. The theatre productions for which he composed music include Půlnocční mše (1959), Po svatbě (1960), Poprask na laguuně (1961) and Tak to na světe chodí (1967), several of which he conducted as well.

He often worked on films with Zdeněk Podskalský (Bílá paní, 1963; Ženu ani květinu neuhodíš, 1966) or Jiří Hanibal (Všude žijí lidé, 1960; Dům ztracených duší, 1967; Červená kůlna, 1968), and another important work was Kinoautomat (1967). Among Illin's best-known films (it was also his last film in Czechoslovakia) is the 1969 comedy Světáci.

In 1968 Illín emigrated to Switzerland. Despite the many contacts he already had there, it took him almost ten years to regain recognition. He wrote music for films and series in West Germany and was twice invited to Hollywood to compose. It was also thanks to this that he was then offered the chance to write the music for the animated German-British series Ferdo the Ant (1984). However, he died before the series was finished, in a hotel room in West Berlin.

Among his classical works we should mention the Scherzo for large orchestra (1947), for which he won first prize in a radio competition the same year, the Symphonietta, the Carnival Suite, the Concerto for Orchestra (1958) or the Rhapsody for flute and orchestra (1958). Also worked on arrangements of folk songs.

In 1968 he was awarded the Memorial Medal for the 70th anniversary of Czechoslovak cinema by the central director of Czechoslovak Film Alois Poledňák.