Jan Čižmář studied lute at the Royal College of Music in London and at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague. He is a founder of the Czech Lute Society and has been teaching at The Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna, The Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice and Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno. As a scholar he is busy researching, editing, performing and recording music from central European archives.
Jan Čižmář is a versatile performer focusing on a wide range of historical plucked instruments. He performs as a soloist with renaissance and baroque repertoire as well as a chamber musician. He is a core member of {oh!} Orkiestra, Ensemble Inégal and his own ensemble Plaisirs de Musique. He has been a busy continuo player, performing with groups such as Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, 18th century orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Ensemble baroque de Limoges, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Collegium 1704, Nederlands Blazers Ensemble, Ensemble Elyma, Arte dei Suonatori, Vox Luminis, Florilegium and many others at concerts and opera productions across Europe, in USA and in Asia. He has worked under conductors such as Frans Brüggen, Christophe Coin, Christopher Hogwood, Giovanni Antonini, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Václav Luks.
In his non-early music past he was busy as a rock, jazz and later as a classical guitarist. He toured Europe with New York production of Jesus Christ Superstar as a rock guitarist and has often appeared on stage in theatrical/dance productions of the Lindsay Kemp Company and Leine & Roebana a.o.
