Stanislav Barek first studied guitar with Professor Jiří Jirmal, then studied guitar playing at the conservatories in Prague and Teplice with Antonín Sádlík, Václav Vítek, and Václav Kučera. Shortly after starting his studies, he began teaching at LŠU in Rumburk and LŠU and ZŠ in Šluknov. Later, he moved to Prague, where he is still sought after as a private teacher. From 1987 to 2008, he led courses and workshops in Weiden, Munich, and other German cities.
He first became acquainted with music in choirs Mikrochor, Akademiachor, and Smetana. In the 1980s, he played in his own rock bands Tvůj problém and Milé tváře, where he created the repertoire, sang, and played guitar. He is best known to the public as a guitar player. In the late 1980s, he formed a classical guitar duo with Nikolai Krestovsky, which was later replaced by a partnership with popular acoustic guitarist Adib Ghalim, which continues to this day. Together, they established regular collaborations with top guitarists such as Andrea Benzoni, Dylan Fowler, Woody Mann, Peppino D'Agostino, and Tommy Emmanuel. In 2003, Stanislav Barek founded the group Njorek with cellist Jaroslav Olin Nejezchleba and zither player Michal Müller, which interprets folk music in their own arrangements. A year later, he became interested in flamenco and Persian music and formed the duo Persepolis with Persian guitarist Shahab Tolouie. In 2005, the duo invited singer Martha Elefteriadu to join them and founded the group Arionas, which focuses on Persian, Greek, and Spanish repertoire. Another collaboration is with Viktor Mazáček, a violinist from the Czech Philharmonic, which resulted in the joint interpretation of classical music – works by Henry Purcell, Ferdinand Carulli, Nicola Paganini, and their own compositions.
In the last four years, he has mainly performed as a solo player. He tours mainly international stages, performing in Mexico, the USA, Japan, and Germany, occasionally in the Czech Republic. He has guest-starred at concerts of the renowned Peppino D'Agostino in California, Switzerland, and Austria. Abroad, he also presents Czech folk music, where he not only plays guitar but also sings. In the various groups he has been part of, he has performed in countries such as Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. He is most frequently seen on German stages. Noteworthy is his successful concert at the Max-Reger Halle in Weiden in 1996, where he performed the Beatles' song "Eleanor Rigby" in his own arrangement for solo guitar and symphony orchestra.
His solo repertoire includes some well-known and lesser-known ragtimes, a bit of blues and swing, arrangements of various pieces (e.g., the aforementioned song or "With a Little Help From My Friends" by the Beatles). He increasingly focuses on composing, with about a third of his current repertoire consisting of his own compositions. He tries to practice many different techniques, such as playing only with the left hand, using percussion while playing harmonics, etc. Sometimes he uses non-standard guitar tunings.
He has several recordings to his credit, including the CD "Romantic Guitar" with Professor Jiří Jirmal, the eponymous recording of the duo Persepolis, and an album with the group Njorek, which was nominated for the Anděl Award in 2005. In recent years, he has released the profile CD "Minimální naděje" (2012) and "Nokturno" (2013) with compositions by Vadim Petrov. His most significant international success came with the albums "Ragtime Guitar and Other Specialties" and "Beatlemaniarag – Ragtime Guitar II," recorded in collaboration with Adib Ghalim, which were praised by the prestigious American magazine Guitar Player. He plans to release his second solo CD by the end of this year, featuring prominent guests such as Tommy Emmanuel, Laurence Juber, Peppino D'Agostino, Dylan Fowler, and others.
Stanislav Barek also thinks about future generations. In recent years, he occasionally visits schools to introduce children to various guitar techniques and music styles. He is the author of two educational publications. His guitar school aptly named "GUITAR" is one of the most successful in the last twenty years and has been published in several tens of thousands of copies. The book serves as supplementary material for guitar lessons in music schools but is also used by self-taught players. On the other hand, his book "Cesty české kytary" (Paths of the Czech Guitar) has a journalistic character and contains interviews with Professor Jiří Jirmal. Guitar enthusiasts will enjoy the arrangements of Scott Joplin's and Jaroslav Ježek's ragtimes in the book "Ragtime Guitar," co-authored with Adib Ghalim, or the revision of Carcassi's 25 Melodic and Progressive Etudes, Op. 60.
An inseparable part of Stanislav Barek's musical contribution is also his organizational work. He is known to the wider public as the founder, director, and dramaturge of the festival "Guitar Across Genres," which he organizes mainly in Prague but also in other Czech cities and sometimes in Germany. By founding it in 1997, he addressed the absence of a multi-genre guitar festival in the Czech Republic. Over the years, "Guitar Across Genres" has gained a reputation as a renowned international festival. The festival annually features world guitar stars such as Vicente Amigo, Tomatito, John McLaughlin, Paco de Lucía, Tommy Emmanuel, Bireli Lagrene, Jennifer Batten, Laurence Juber, Peppino D'Agostino, and others. In addition to top guitarists from the Czech Republic and abroad, the festival also gives students of art schools the opportunity to perform. Besides the guitar, the concerts also showcase other string instruments such as cuatro, hurdy-gurdy, zither, or mandolin. This year's edition plans to introduce the unusual instrument Chapman Stick.
Before the festival's inception, Stanislav Barek organized concerts for the Olga Havlová Goodwill Committee (1991 – Weiden, Germany, and 1995–1997 – Prague, Žižkov Town Hall). In 2005, he organized a unique concert "Legends of Czech Guitar" dedicated to Professors Jiří Jirmal and Milan Zelenka. From 2004 to 2010, he collaborated on a series of concerts "Rebelling Ladies of Czech Music," aimed at popularizing the work and interpretive art of artistically significant female musicians. One of the successes was the sold-out concert of Tommy Emmanuel with the band Acoustic & Electric Tour in 2011 at the Great Hall of Lucerna. Since 2005, Stanislav Barek has been a member of the council of the Union of Authors and Performers, with whom he co-founded a guitar competition in 2013 for guitarists who play genres other than classical. In its two years of existence, the competition has already discovered several interesting young talents.
