Jan Pirner studied Czech language and literature and music education at the Faculty of Education of Charles University (2002–08), and concurrently musicology at the Faculty of Arts of the same university (2003–06). He served as director of the Prague Chamber Choir (2010–22), with which he toured most of Europe as well as Japan, Macao, and Lebanon, and repeatedly took part in prominent music festivals such as the Rossini Opera Festival and the Wexford Festival Opera.
From 2012 to 2018, he worked at the Department of Music History of the Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences as an editor of the scholarly journal Hudební věda (Musicology) and also contributed to research on Antonín Dvořák. Since 2012, he has been employed at what is now the National Institute for Culture (formerly NIPOS), where he manages the music library, edits the choral edition Polyhymnia Bohemica, and serves as a specialist for children’s and adult choral singing.
He has been involved in music since childhood, starting in the boys’ choir Pueri gaudentes, later becoming a member or guest performer in professional choirs and chamber ensembles including the Prague Philharmonic Choir, Prague Chamber Choir, and Kühn Mixed Choir. Since 2012, he has been the conductor of the children’s choir Radost Praha, with which he regularly competes and performs both in the Czech Republic and abroad (Balchik, Bratislava, Kaunas, Limburg-Lindenholzhausen, Montreux, Neerpelt, Preveza, Rimini, Sopot, Warsaw), and takes part in major music festivals such as Dvořák’s Prague, Smetana’s Litomyšl, Prague Sounds, and Bohuslav Martinů Days.
In 2015, he founded the girls’ chamber choir Vokalion Praha, which successfully participated in the World Choral Championship in Taipei in 2025.
For his work as a choir conductor, he has received several awards, including Best Conductor at the Kaunas Cantat competition in Lithuania (2016) and at the Rimini International Choral Competition (2025), the Award of the Council of Prague 7 for contributions to culture (2016), and the Junior Choir Conductor Award (2016) from the Union of Czech Choirs.
