Pešek worked as artistic director and chief conductor of the Liverpool Royal Orchestra from 1987 to 1997. On the occasion of the state visit of the British Queen Elizabeth II. in the Czech Republic in 1996 he received the Order of the British Empire. A year later, he received the Medal of Merit of the 1st degree from the hands of President Václav Havel. In 2013, he received a diamond record from representatives of the Supraphon company for 635,000 carriers sold. Four years ago, he won the Classic Prague Awards for classical music in the lifetime contribution category.
In his youth, Pešek studied piano, trombone and cello. “It is good for a conductor to have experience with a stringed instrument, and a piano is necessary so that in his youth he can play scores that he only reads later,” he stated earlier in an interview with ČTK. According to Pešek, a conductor must also be a good psychologist with great empathy.
A car lover, jazz fan and also an avid stargazer, Pešek performed with his own jazz big band as a high school student. He later graduated in conducting at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. In the 1950s and 1960s, he founded the ensembles Komorní harmonie and the Sebastian Orchestra, and from the following decade he was a guest with various domestic and foreign orchestras.
In the early 1980s, Pešek briefly led the Slovak Philharmonic, from 1981 to 1990 he was a regular guest of the Czech Philharmonic. He then became the chief guest conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of the Capital City of Prague, FOK, and before the end of his active career held the post of chief conductor of the ČNSO.
