Leoš Janáček was a layman who was very closely connected to the Augustinian Order, and was probably the most important Czech composer of the 20th century. 

Baptised as Leo Eugen Janáček on 3 July 1854 he was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. His early musical output was influenced by contemporaries such as Antonín Dvořák.

His later mature works incorporated Moravian and other Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. When the young Leoš Janáček came to Brno from his native Hukvaldy in 1865, Kríkovský became one of his patrons. Janáček, took over the direction of the Old Brno Choir when Kríkovský moved to Olomouc.

Janácek was a teacher of music, as well, at the nearby Pedagogical School on Porící (today the Pedagogical Faculty of Masaryk University) and took over the direction of the newly founded Brno organ academy.

He was very closely connected to the Augustinian Order and to its Old Brno Thurn Foundation throughout his life. He entered the Augustinian Abbey at Brno as a scholar in 1865 and was able to get musical and academic education thanks to this Foundation.

Seven years after Janáček had been taken on as a scholar, Pavel Kríkovský moved to Olomouc and Janáček, became director of the choir of the Foundation. Upon his leaving the Thurn Foundation in 1925, Masaryk University awarded him an honorary doctorate as a beloved and gifted son of the Order.

Janáček’s later works are his most celebrated. They include operas such as Káťa Kabanová and The Cunning Little Vixen, the Sinfonietta, the Glagolitic Mass, the rhapsody Taras Bulba, two string quartets, and other chamber works. Along with Antonín Dvořák and Bedřich Smetana, he is considered one of the most important Czech composers.

When he died on 12 August 1928, members of the Order of Saint Augustine of Brno carried his coffin on his final journey from the Chapel (cappella) of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old Brno Cathedral to the place of burial.

Links

Leoš Janácek. The most important Czech composer of the 20th century. 
http://www.leosjanacek.co.uk

Leoš Janáček - Sinfonietta (1926) - YouTube. (24 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbncXDimwbQ  and also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLUKx6qPlXE

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