Jaroslav Beck

Early life

Jaroslav was born in the town of Strakonice in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. He was first introduced to music at the age of six when he started to learn how to play a flute. He soon realized that he doesn't enjoy reproducing what someone else already composed as it gave him no freedom and he started to create his own sounds.

At the age of 14 he started flying gliders. A year later, he successfully completed the training and obtained a pilot licence. This turned out to be an important step towards music since it gave him the confidence he needed and it later helped him to make the decision to leave his comfort zone and pursue music full time. In 2003 he started to study secondary technical school in Strakonice and began to work as DJ at the same time. To follow the family tradition, he entered University of West Bohemia in 2007 and studied at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering until he quit in 2012.

Dj career

At the age of fifteen he discovered electronic music for the first time. A major step in this direction was the legendary techno festival in Roudnice nad Labem with Carl Cox as headliner. He instantly fell in love with electronic music. His first gig was a techno rave in the town of Vimperk in 2007 called “Demolition” where he performed under his own name.

After Vimperk he started touring around clubs and festivals in the Czech Republic. After the “Apokalypsa” show in Brno, he changed his stage name to Jay Beck and he started to lean towards progressive house.

He had the opportunity to perform in the most desired clubs in the Czech Republic alongside both Czech and foreign Djs. Among his important performances for example: Summer of Love (Pardubice), Mácháč (Machovo jezero), Apokalypsa (Brno), Duplex (Prague)… and many more. During his DJ career he also started to produce his own electronic music, mostly Progressive and Electro House and he tried to discover his own style.

Oxford

In 2012, he quit University of West Bohemia and he left to Oxford to study Audio Production at SAE Institute. In Oxford, he changed his DJ stage name to “Sqeepo” and he started leaning towards an electronic music style called “Dubstep”. During his studies at SAE, he spent most of the time in a studio composing music under his Sqeepo identity. He also composed music for a number one Slovak singer Kristína.

He successfully graduated with honours from Oxford's SAE in 2014 obtaining a BSc. (Bachelor of Science) degree.

Trailer music production

In 2013 he joined forces with a friend, visual effects artist Pavel Kacerle. Jaroslav created sound effects and composed original music to Pavel's demo reel for Iron Man 3 which later turned out to be a major step towards his current career. Thanks to a music he made for the demo reel, he got noticed overseas and while still in Oxford, he got his first work offer to remix music to EA Games' Battlefield Hardline trailer in 2014. After that, more work offers followed and Jaroslav began to work on trailers for both movies and games full time. After Battlefield Hardline, he worked on Battlefield 4 Final Stand and one more Battlefield Hardline. After that he started to cooperate with Blizzard Entertainment as well, his first trailer was Heroes of the Storm in 2015 followed by StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void where Jaroslav remixed an original StarCraft music. In 2016 he won a G.A.N.G. Award for the Best Cinematic / Cutscene Audio as a part of the team that stood behind the StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void introduction trailer. He also cooperated with Joshua Crispin a.k.a. Generdyn on music which was used for Terminator Genisys TV spot in 2015 and for Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens TV spot. In 2016 he collaborated on music composition for Blizzard's “Overwatch” short movies (Alive, Hero, Dragons) and he started to collaborate with Cliff Bleszinski's company BossKey on trailers and soundtracks for a new game “LawBreakers”.

Epic Music Productions

Jaroslav founded Epic Music Productions in 2016. The company focuses on modern cinematic music production mainly for trailers and soundtracks for both the music and gaming industry. The company's speciality is production of the complete audio content for new games from soundtrack, through sound design to sound for trailers alone. Their clients are from all over the world, mainly from the USA. In the future they are planning to focus on virtual reality audio projects and also on new audio hardware development to innovate sound for soundtracks as such.

Awards