He played the piano and violin from early childhood. After finishing the Prague Conservatory, percussion department, he was much sought-after as a versatile studio percussionist, playing extensively with symphony/chamber orchestras as well as big jazz/dance bands.

A member of the Czechoslovak TV Orchestra, he comes in touch with their brand-new marimba, quite a rarity at that time; gets hooked and begins developing his own four-mallet technique, drawing on that of the world-famous vibraphonist Garry Burton and achieving a sound effect close to the guitar or the piano.

He premieres Concerto festivo for marimba and symphony orchestra, the first in a long series of concertos and pieces by contemporary composers inspired by Kokoška´s marimba virtuosity, for which he is dubbed ”the Paganini of Marimba”.

To turn the marimba into a regular concert instrument, he combines it with flute and guitar and sets up a chamber ensemble, the Prague Marimba Trio.

°He brings out the first Prague Marimba Trio album which consists of compositions written exclusively for the Trio by major contemporary Czech composers.

°He performs as soloist with leading Czech and Slovak symphony and chamber orchestras (incl. Prague Chamber Orchestra Without Conductor, City of Prague Symphony Orchestra FOK, Slovak Philharmonic) in concerts across the country and at International Prague Spring Festivals (1984,1985, 1986). See PRESS CUTTINGS

°With violin having replaced the flute and with guitarist and composer Štěpán Rak, the Prague Marimba Trio becomes a Czechoslovak TV chamber ensemble. This helps increase the Trio visibility while bypassing the official agency that holds a music-exporting monopoly in totalitarian Czechoslovakia and shows little understanding for Kokoška´s marimba projects. The Trio frequently appears in domestic music programmes and in several European co-productive features, takes part in several international festivals and becomes a fairly well known and popular ensemble.

A thirty-minute documentary about the Trio and himself, made by a well-known Czech director, runs for some time before main features in movie houses across the country. The official agency, however, does not respond to invitations that the trio gets from abroad.

He puts a lot of effort into the second album of the Prague Marimba Trio; next to pieces composed by Rak, it includes classical old masters, which are given a new sound of the Marimba Trio instrumentation. See RECORDINGS.

° He feels it is time to stop fighting for his Marimba Trio project and do more serious things.

° The velvet revolution sees him take up an offer to become head of a Prague music school, extended to him by the whole teaching staff. This school has ever since been noted for highly competent teachers, some of them renowned performing musicians.

° He becomes manager of a chamber music cycle of Concerts on the 24^th Floor of the newly built Forum Hotel in Prague; for a decade these concerts have been a much attended monthly cultural and social event. Ten years later he moves the cycle into the Holiday Inn Hotel.

°He takes up private lessons to study composition with Hanuš Bartoň and Alexej Fried.

See CONCERTOS.

After a five-year break, he comes back to appear on concert stage in the Rudolfinum to premiere his first marimba concerto, with the Prague Chamber Orchestra Without Conductor. See PRESS CUTTINGS.

He premieres his second (in the Rudolfinum) and third (in the Berlin Philharmonics Hall) marimba concerto and has all the three recorded on a CD with conductor Petr Vronsky.

See RECORDINGS.

°Performs his Second Concerto in Montevideo with the conductor Roberto Montenegro of Uruguay and la Orquesta Sinfónica del Sodre. See CONCERTOS.

°Having found compatible fellow soloists, he decides to revive the Prague Marimba Trio project as the Prague Chamber Session. See TRIO PROJECT .