Vladimír Franz

Vladimír Franz (born May 25, 1959 in Prague, Czechoslovakia), is a Czech composer, painter, university scholar and occasional journalist, poet and playwright. Since mid-1980s he has composed stage music for more than 150 theatre performances—for many of them he was awarded national-level prizes—he has also composed a symphony, several operas, oratorios, a musical, ballet, as well as film music and music for documentaries and radio plays. His second main area of activities in the field of arts is represented by painting. Since 1991 he has been a lecturer at the Prague's Faculty of Theatre. In 2012 he was also a registered candidate in the 2013 Czech presidential election. The attention of local as well as world media has been attracted to him usually due to his extraordinarily extensive tattoo.