Biography
Balatka was born in Hoffnungsthal (near Olmütz), Moravia. His parents were noted musicians. He studied law at Olmütz, and after finishing the course was engaged as tutor by a wealthy family in Vienna. There he also perfected his knowledge of harmony and composition under Simon Sechter und Heinrich Proch.
He began his musical career as conductor for singing societies. He became a member of the Academic Legion during the Revolutions of 1848. After the Vienna Uprising was crushed, he decided to emigrate to the United States. In 1849 he reached Wisconsin and, following a romantic impulse, tried rural life for a spell, but soon settled in Milwaukee, where he conducted the Musical Society (German: Musikverein) there beginning in 1850 or 1851. He produced several oratorios and operas, and conducted musical festivals in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago, and Pittsburgh.
In 1860 he became leader of the newly founded Philharmonic Society of Chicago, in 1867 director of the Germania Männerchor, and in the same year conducted a musical festival in Indianapolis. In 1868 he directed a musical festival at Chicago, which was pronounced the greatest that had been held in this country up to that time.
The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed his home, and he went on a concert tour for two years. He organized the Liederkranz Society in 1873, and later the Mozart Club and the Chicago Musical Society. He was also director to the Arion des Westen Musical Society and in 1879 he founded the Balatka Academy of Musical Art, in which his son Christian and his daughter Annie were teachers. He conducted a great Saengerfest in Chicago, with a chorus of 2,200, a mixed chorus of 1,200, and an orchestra of 150. He died in Chicago, aged 72.
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