Igor Wasserberger

Mgr. Igor Wasserberger, CSc. is a Slovak musicologist, dramaturge, publicist, editor, and educator living in Prague. His research has primarily focused on jazz and the historiography of Slovak popular music. Since the 1960s, he has been active as a publicist, theorist, and critic, and from the 1970s he collaborated as a screenwriter and dramaturge on many television programs dedicated to Slovak popular music.

A founding contribution to Slovak lexicography and a significant addition to Czechoslovak jazz theory and historiography was the publication of Jazzový slovník (Jazz Dictionary, Bratislava, 1966), which originated on his initiative, under his editorship, and with a significant portion of original content authored by him. This work led to the idea of creating a more extensive encyclopedic project, Encyklopedie jazzu a moderní populární hudby (Encyclopedia of Jazz and Modern Popular Music, Prague 1980–1990). Igor Wasserberger also contributed to the collective six-volume work Encyklopédia Slovenska (Encyclopedia of Slovakia, Bratislava 1977–1982).

Wasserberger also authored several books on jazz, including Hrá džez (Jazz is Playing, Bratislava 1968) and Jazzové profily (Jazz Profiles, Prague 1969), both in collaboration with Antonín Matzner, as well as a more instructional work Základy džezovej interpretácie (Basics of Jazz Interpretation, with Ivan Horváth, Bratislava 1972).

He regularly contributed reviews—especially of jazz concerts—and other articles to the newspapers Smena and Večerník, and to journals and anthologies such as Hudební rozhledy, Melodie, Harmonie, Taneční hudba a jazz, Hudba pro radost, and Hudba-spev-tanec.

He also wrote sleeve notes for LPs and CDs and participated in numerous academic conferences and seminars.

From 1974 to 1992, he worked at Czechoslovak Television in Bratislava. He first served as a sound director (selecting music for TV films) and later as chief dramaturge of light music genres in the music editorial department. Among the programs he worked on were Nesmúť za mnou (Don’t Mourn for Me – about Slovak tangos), Spomienky na F. K. Veselého (Memories of F. K. Veselý), and Televízne návraty (Television Returns), which revisited earlier broadcasting eras of Czechoslovak Television in Bratislava.

He actively promoted jazz in programs such as Míľniky džezovej histórie (Milestones of Jazz History) and Konfrontácie (Confrontations). As a dramaturge of radio jazz concerts, he prepared a program series titled Štúdio mladých (Studio of the Young). He also collaborated with Czech Radio on the production of several jazz-focused programs.

Igor Wasserberger was a long-time official of the Union of Slovak Composers, a member of numerous expert juries, editorial boards, and professional associations. He also taught jazz and popular music history at the Department of Musicology at the Faculty of Arts, Comenius University, at the Conservatory in Bratislava, at a university in Vienna, and at the Jaroslav Ježek Conservatory in Prague.