SVU Nebraska Chapter News

The Nebraska Chapter has been extremely busy since early August. We continue to be active and visible at festivals and community events. We spent two days at the Wilber Czech Festival in August and one day in September at the Prague Czech Festival with our crystal/books/pins/music that we sell for our chapter fundraiser. We make many contacts and new friends when we are out in the community. Nearly all of scheduled events below are held on the University of Nebraska campus and they are attended by students, interested university and community members, and chapter members. In between the public lectures, concerts, and dinners, we hold regular monthly chapter meetings. Our officers for 2003-04 remain the same: President, Kacenka Oslzla; Vice-Presidents: Dr. Joseph Swoboda and Helen Pejsar; Secretary: Layne Pierce; Treasurer: John Fiala.

September. Professor Zdenek Hedbavny was in Lincoln and a reception on the 21st was hosted by our SVU Chapter at the home of Layne Pierce and Mila Saskova-Pierce. He delivered a lecture on the 23rd entitled Czech Theater and Its Role in Czech Cultural History. On the 26th ten SVU Nebraska Chapter members went to the Opening of the Czech Consulate Office in Kansas City and got to spend additional time afterwards with Ambassador Palous.

October. Violinist Ivan Zenaty and pianist Katarina Zenata were in Lincoln from the 13th-16 as the first stop in their ten city North American tour. They wanted to meet Nebraska Czechs so we planned many activities for them. Once again the Pierces hosted a reception for them that was attended by 30+ members of our SVU chapter. Layne Pierce=s birthday was the 14th and he was surprised with a Birthday violin concerto by Ivan. A concert was held the evening of the 15th. In between their busy schedule we showed them the sites in and around the university setting. We are trying to recruit this very talented young couple to the SVU roles. Violinist Ivan Zenaty graduated from the Prague Conservatory and Academy of Performing Arts and completed additional master courses in Zurich and Weimar. Since 1988 he has been collaborating in private tutorship with the legendary Czech violinist Josef Suk. After winning the Prague Spring International Violin Competition in 1982, Zenaty was a sololist with the Prague Symphony and later with the Czech Radio Orchestra. At the same time he soloed with the Berlin Symphony at their Festwochen and toured Europe with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. He has performed with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and with major orchestras abroad. He has recorded several CD's, including works by Martinu, Kreisler, Mozart and Foerster. In 1990 he received the first prize of the Ruggiero Ricci Mster Course in Berlin. He has appeared together with Yehudi Menuhin and Yo-Yo Ma. Since 1996, Zenaty has been a professor at the Music Academy in Dresden. He has given numerous master classes in Germany, Canada, and Spain. The Slovak pianist Katarina Zenata is one of the remarkable talents of recent years. During her studies at Comenius University in Bratislava she attracted attention in concert halls in Hungary, Austria, and especially in Switzerland, where she won a four-year scholarship from the Swiss Rotary Club. Her chamber music performances with her husband Ivan Zenaty are focused primarily on the work of Béla Bartók. They have together recorded a series of works from the twentieth century, and their last album contains virtuoso selections. Along with her concert performances, Zenata is working toward a doctorate at the University of Dresden.

Professor Charles Townsend from Princeton was also in town during the month of October, participating in Russian Week. I held a dinner for him in my home and made ASpanielski Ptacki@. He delivered a lecture for our SVU Chapter entitled AHistory of Czech Language, its Registers and Politics.@ Prof. Townsend saw the sites in and around campus and he got to have lunch with our football team at the Cornhusker Training Table. This was a highlight for him!

November and December. We showed the Milos Forman film, Firemen=s Ball on the 4th. One of our current Robitschek Scholars from the Czech Republic, Matyas Zrno, gave a talk on the 17th entitled AThe Day of the Fight for Freedom,@ a lecture and documentary about the Velvet Revolution. The evening of the 21st was spent with visitors Joel Blahnik and Anita Smisek. A potluck dinner was held on campus and friendship, fellowship, and music were part of that enjoyable evening. We celebrated St. Mikulas Day on the 4th of December with a potluck dinner and stories about how St. Mikulas Day was celebrated, past and present.

January. The only event we have scheduled is a film viewing of Limonade Joe on the 20th. Otherwise we will be meeting weekly for our major event the month of February, Czech Days at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Ambassador Palous=s visit.

February. Ambassador Palous arrives on the 12 and will deliver two public lectures that day. On Friday the 13th the Ambassador will be our keynote speaker at a banquet and dance to be held at the Cornhusker Hotel. We will host a Czech community potluck dinner the evening of the 14th. On the 16th, Matyas Zrno, Robitschek Scholar, will deliver a lecture entitled The Role of Beer in Czech History, Politics; on the 17th Amy Swoboda will present her lecture entitled Czech Music in Nebraska. On February 25th we will help host the 100th anniversary of the Komensky Club with a Czech dinner and entertainment.

March, April, May. Matyas Zrno will present a lecture and documentary entitled Czech Politics after Vaclav Havel on the 2nd. Dr. Joseph Swoboda will present his talk on Mental Health and Czech Culture: T. G. Masaryk Perspective on the 23rd. On April 6 our Robitschek Scholars will share Easter traditions in the Czech Republic and on the 20th Mary Swoboda will present a lecture on Trafficking in Women. Our final event for the year will be an SVU booth at the Nebraska Czechs of Lincoln Festival to be held on May 2.

In addition to the activities listed above, I have been collecting the papers that were presented at the Cedar Rapids conference in June; reformatting all of them to Rich Text Format and sending them to our editor, Professor Charles Townsend from Princeton. Once he has edited them, he sends them back to me electronically, I convert them back to Word Documents and I have been sending them back to the authors to go through one more time. The final step in the process will be to have someone get them ready in Desk Top Publishing format. We have 19 articles done at this point in time. This has been a huge undertaking and I truly appreciate all of Professor Townsend=s efforts and careful editing.

Respectfully submitted
Kacenka Oslzla, President
SVU Nebraska Chapter

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