Eduard Ingriš

Eduard Ingriš (Czech pronunciation: [ˈɪŋɡɾɪʃ]) (February 11, 1905 – January 11, 1991) was a Czech-American composer, photographer, conductor and adventurer.

Born in Zlonice in Bohemia (then-Austro-Hungary, now Czech Republic), Ingriš left Czechoslovakia in 1947 for South America, living in Brazil and Peru. In 1955 and 1959 he organized the Kantuta and Kantuta II raft voyages and sailed across the Pacific, in similar style to Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-tiki.

While Ingriš' travels spanned the globe and his talents led him through several careers, his first love was always music. He wrote the first arrangement of the famous "Beer Barrel Polka", after Jaromír Vejvoda came upon the melody and sought Ingriš' help in refining it. This was shortly before the outbreak of World War II. The piece was brought to England by Czech pilots flying for the Royal Air Force, became an overnight hit there, and subsequently was popularized in America.

Ingriš received degrees from the Charles University in Prague and the Prague Conservatory. He composed about 1,000 works, including forty-eight operettas and musical comedies, full opera and symphonies. At nineteen he composed the operetta "The Capricious Mirror", which played five years in Prague — a record-setting of 1,600 performances (surpassing records of New York's Broadway). He directed the Symphony Orchestra of Prague and scored 11 European movies. He also conducted the National Symphony Orchestra of Peru.

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