After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, when his country became free from the Soviet Union, he started to become a national hero. He was made Professor of Composition and president of the Prague Spring Music Festival. Many music festivals performed his compositions, and he traveled to hear the concerts in spite of the fact that he was starting to become ill. His music was often played in England, where he had spent two years as professor of composition at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester from 1978 to 1979. In March 2007 the BBC Symphony Orchestra under their Czech conductor Jiří Bělohlávek performed his "Vox Clamantis", a work he had written in 1968 which shows the Czech people’s longing to be free.