The great Czech composer AntonÃn DvoÅák lived in New York for three years in the 1890s, after being invited to teach at Americaâs national conservatory.
DvoÅákâs stay in the city made a tangible impact on his work, and it was there that he was to write the wonderful New World Symphony. Today his legacy in New York is kept alive by the DvoÅák American Heritage Association.
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Fresh chaos for US air passengers ... NYCâs Czech National Building I spoke to leading member Dr Susan Lucak, and began by asking her: when and why was the association founded?
âThe DvoÅák American Heritage Association was founded in 1990. The reason the organisation was created was to save a house in which AntonÃn DvoÅák lived during his stay in New York City from 1892 to 1895, when he was the director of a conservatory in America â it was the national conservatory in America.â
But the campaign to save his house failed.
âIt failed in the sense that the house in which he lived on East 17th St was ultimately destroyed. But our dream to honour his musical legacy in New York did not die, it was not destroyed.â
Tell us a bit please about the work that Dvorak did here in New York.
âAntonÃn DvoÅák was brought here by Jeanette Thurber in 1892 to encourage American composers to create their own American music, rather than look towards Europe for musical inspiration.
âSo DvoÅák was the director of the National Conservatory and he listened to the music and the sounds that he heard here in America. He was impressed by the music of black Americans, which were called Negro Spirituals at that time. He also went to Spillville, Iowa, where he heard the music of American Natives.
âThese sounds very much impressed him and he incorporated the spirit of this music, of these sounds, in his works.
âIn the house on East 17th St he composed masterpieces including the New World Symphony, the American Quartet, the Biblical Songs, and other masterpieces.â
How was DvoÅák received in New York? Was he already a huge world star of music?
âHe was very well known in Europe and he was received here very positively. He conducted concerts in New York and was invited to perform at the Worldâs Fair in Chicago in 1893. He was very, very well received and he was very well known.â
Tell us more about the DvoÅák American Heritage Association and what you do today.
âAfter the DvoÅák house was destroyed what the organisation worked on was to rename the street where the house once stood, and it is now named DvoÅák place.
âIn addition, the New York Philharmonic donated a statue that they received from a Czech organisation in the 1960s. The statue was created by a sculptor by the name of Ivan Mestrovic, and was not placed in the Lincoln Centre in the 1960s because it did not fit its abstract décor.
âIt was placed on the roof of the New York Philharmonic Hall, at the time called the Fisher Hall. It was there for many years, sort of exposed to the elements.
âIt was then donated to the DvoÅák American Heritage Association and we placed it in a small park near where the DvoÅák house once stood.
âWe then did not have a home for DvoÅák, but currently the Bohemian National Hall, the národnà budova, is being renovated by the Czech government, which bought it from the Czech community led by the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association for one dollar. In exchange the BBLA has the third floor of the národnà budova.
âOn the third floor there is a room that will be called the DvoÅák Room, or the DvoÅákova sÃÅ, where we will honour in a palpable way the American musical legacy of AntonÃn DvoÅák.â
Weâre sitting in that room now â what features of the room are original pieces connected with DvoÅák, and what will be here when itâs completed?
âThe room is not a large room, but it contains a marble mantelpiece that we saved from the original DvoÅák house. Also we saved a plaque that was affixed to the house by a former mayor, Fiorello LaGuardia, in 1941, when DvoÅákâs 100th birthday was honoured.
âThe plans for the room are to have an exhibit that will be called âDvoÅák in Americaâ and will focus on the three years of his stay in New York. It will have the feel of a parlour room from the 1890s, in terms of the furniture that it will contain.
âIt will also contain archives and a media centre where one can hear his music. To give life and energy to this room weâre going to have, and we already have, a concert and lecture series.â
www.dvoraknyc.org
(radio-Prague)
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