Best known for his work Perpetuum Mobile Novacek’s teachers were his father and later Jakob Dant, Henry Schradieck and Brodsky at the Leipzig Conservatory. In 1885, Novacekwon the prestigious Mendelssohn Prize and as a result, played as a soloist with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Novacek emigrated to the USA and entered the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Novacek later assumed the position of principal viola in the Damrosch Orchestra in New York. Ferruccio Busoni was a piano soloist at the first performance of Novacek’s piano concerto.