Oh, if only these walls could speak - Czechoslovak Society of Arts ...

Selected Papers from the 2003 SVU North American Conference, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 26-28 June 2003
The curriculum was restricted to the basics, but the children were not short changed.
Kovarik worked hard to give his pupils more than a cursory education and his list of exceptional
students who would go on to prominent positions is a long one. Notable are:
• The Very Reverend Prokopius Neuzil: He became a teacher, then a priest and at age 26
founded St. Prokopius College in Lisle, Illinois. He later helped to establish the
Benedictine Abbey Press. He also served as Abbot of the Abbey.
• Dr. Alois F. Kovarik: He continued his education, earning a doctorate in physics at the
University of Minnesota and later became a Professor of Nuclear Physics at Yale
University. During World War I, he was a member of an important federal government
panel studying counter-measures against German submarines. Dr. Kovarik also
participated on the Manhattan Project during World War II. The significant product of
this effort was the atomic bomb.
• James S. Mikesh became an author and theologian who taught at Yale and at Harvard.
In 1893 J.J. Kovarik gave up his teaching post to devote more time to his music. He
moved to New Prague, Minnesota in 1899 where he continued his music career as a music
teacher, orchestra leader and choirmaster. John J. Kovarik died in 1939 at age 89 in New Prague,
MN. In a New Prague newspaper article written by Frances Boardman and published shortly
after Kovarik’s death, Boardman stated that Kovarik “… left behind him the deathless results of
an influence immeasurably good and honest and wise and kind. Among his children and
grandchildren and other relatives are names that figure importantly in the American world of
music and science.”
1871 to 1894 – Joseph John Kovarik
One very notable pupil of John J. Kovarik was his son Joseph. John’s true love was
music, in which he instructed his family thoroughly. With a solid foundation in music learned
from his father, at age 13, Joseph went on to attend music school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. At
age 18 Joseph began his studies at the Prague Conservatory of Music in Prague, Bohemia.
Joseph was a member of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for 41 years. He was also a
violin and viola instructor at the National Conservatory of Music in New York City and at the
New York College of Music in New York City. The Russian conductor Vasili Safanov declared
that Joseph Kovarik was the best violist he had ever heard.
Without question, one of the most important facets of Joseph’s life had to be his
relationship with Antonin Dvorak. It was while he was at the Conservatory in Prague that he met
and became a close friend and companion of Dvorak, the famous Czech composer. The
momentous event took place one day in 1892 while Kovarik was reading an American paper in a
Prague music store. Dvorak entered the store, and, seeing that Kovarik was reading an American
paper, asked if he were American. Upon learning that he was, Dvorak asked if Kovarik would
consider accompanying him to America where he was to take charge of the New York
Conservatory of Music. Kovarik agreed and later became Dvorak’s close friend, traveling
companion and personal secretary in America.
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