Vojtěch Havel, Influential Czech Cellist and Composer, Dies at 62

Vojtěch Havel, the influential Czech cellist who played with his wife as Irena & Vojtěch Havels, has died, his record label Animal Music confirms. His death of heart failure, on October 21, followed a recent tour of the Faroe Islands, which had been due to lead in to more dates behind this year’s Four Hands LP. Vojtěch Havel was 62 years old.

Irena & Vojtěch Havels made acoustic ambient music that drew from American minimalism, European early music, and Eastern philosophies, the Czech writer Pavel Klusák notes in an obituary. They emerged from what was then Czechoslovakia, in the 1980s, as part of the Capella Antiqua e Moderna project. “In the massive echo of Prague’s gothic and baroque temples,” Klusák writes, “the minimal music of the Havels flew and smashed against the walls in a large instrumentation with trombone, contrabass, flute, organ, strings, voices.”

On a trip to Czechoslovakia in the late 1980s, Bryce Dessner’s sister heard the couple playing on the street and bought their record Little Blue Nothing. When Dessner formed the pre-National band Clogs, the album became “one of our favorite records of all time,” he told Pitchfork in 2006. “Minimal and haunting.” Dessner tracked them down to perform with Clogs on a U.S. tour, later composing a tribute in the form of the string quartet Little Blue Something, which interpolated some of the duo’s themes.

As Irena & Vojtěch Havels, the couple went on to record many more albums and accumulate snowballing international acclaim, including an invite from Sufjan Stevens to the Ohio festival MusicNow. Various compilations—such as 2021’s Melodies in the Sand, collected by Jonny Nash for the ambient label Melody as Truth—reframed their classics for new fans, before this year’s Four Hands, their first album of new material in 14 years.

In Little Blue Nothing, Vincent Moon’s documentary on the couple, Irena Havlová says, “It took us years to realize that we arrived on Earth with a serene mind. Actually we were not interested in everything in the world and rest. We didn’t have the usual daily desires people have in general.” Vojtěch Havel adds, “When we feel that the space and people play along with us, it’s the most beautiful moment. It’s like disappearing.”