• 1945

    return to Slovakia to Bratislava, he continued to study music (Štefan Németh-Šamorínsky)

  • 1951 – 1956

    Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava (composition – Ján Cikker)

  • 1956 – 1959

    studied at the Deutsche Akademie der Künster in Berlin (composition – Paul Dessau), co-operation with DEFA film studios

  • 1957 – 1962

    worked as a musical director in the Czechoslovak Radio in Bratislava, co-operation with ensembles such as SĽUK, Lúčnica, Mladé srdcia

  • 1962 – 1968

    the programme adviser at the Studio of Short Film in Bratislava

  • 1968

    emigration to Sweden, he worked as a piano technician and tuner, a musical reviewer of the magazine Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning, a pedagogue at various schools of music in Södertalje, Arvika, Stockholm and at the Gothenburg University

Pavol Šimai achieved the basic general and musical education in Budapest (piano – Pál Kadosa).

"Šimai is a member of that generation of Slovak composers whose radical wing uncompromisingly established the new currents of 20th century music; he himself, however, despite experimenting with new compositional procedures and materials (A Mother Speaks), remained firmly anchored in tradition, whose essential principles he did not reject, seeking new opportunities for musical expression by less pompous and shocking means. Šimai focused on work with timbre (Meditation; Dream and Dawn; Vittoria), which also became one of the main vehicles of his compositional language, and he took inspiration from the melody of the folk song. A number of his compositions were produced as responses to artworks by his wife J. Šimaiová."

(RAJTEROVÁ, Alžbeta: Pavol Šimai. In: A Hundred Slovak Composers. Eds. Marián Jurík, Peter Zagar. Bratislava : National Music Centre Slovakia, 1998, pp. 276 – 277.)

x