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3-MINUTE CHALLENGE, Episode 3

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A popular online mini-series presenting three-minute videos of Czech and Slovak artists and professionals based in New York and their reflections on how the challenging Covid reality affected their work and projects. This third edition will feature three accomplished creative New Yorkers: Tom Kotik, Maria Haršániová and Anna Rathkopf.

Live Q&A will follow the screening of three 3-minute videos.

Moderated by Christopher Harwood and Suzanna Halsey

REGISTER HERE to receive the Zoom link.

Free and open to the public.
Suggested donation $5 or more. Tax-deductible.

This event is organized by Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU), New York Chapter, in collaboration with the Consulate General of the Slovak Republic, and with the support of Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA).

Poster

TOM KOTIK, born in Prague to an artistic family, is a Brooklyn-based artist, curator and musician. He has exhibited at Lesley Heller Workspace (NYC), Fundacio Juan Miro (Barcelona), Kostka Gallery (Prague) and The House of Arts (Brno). Since 2013, Tom has been a Curator at Large for Arts Brookfield in New York organizing exhibitions of emerging artists in New York and Los Angeles. He received his MFA from Hunter College in 2004 and has been a resident artist at Meet Factory (Prague), Art OMI, Yaddo, LMCC Workspace Program and the AIM Program at the Bronx Museum of Art. He uses silence as the starting position of his artworks. Many of his works deal with both the physical aspects of silence and materials from which non-functional replicas of audio equipment generate, as well as socio-political implications of silence itself. Both a practicing sculptor and (rock!) musician, he prefers making silent works that allow the viewers to compose as they observe. Thus sound, silence and form can find true harmony.

MÁRIA HARŠÁNIOVÁ, a writer under the pseudonym Maya Reyes, comes from the small town of Modrá in Slovakia. She earned her Masters of Social Work at St. Elizabeth College in Bratislava. Maria is currently finishing a master’s degree at Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College to obtain her SW license in the USA. She enjoys psychology and is interning as a group facilitator and therapist. Before settling in New York in 2016, she lived in England, Spain, The Netherlands and Cuba. Maria’s novel Exit Havana was published in 2016 by the Motý? publishing house in Slovakia. The story is based on her experience as a breast cancer patient. Maria also enjoys photography and blogging.

ANNA RATHKOPF lived in Prague until 2005 when she met her American husband and moved to New York City. She received her MA in Jewish Studies from Charles University in Prague. Her love for reading and photography led her naturally to blogging. In her Czech blog Mama za vodou, she wittingly describes her expat life in her Brooklyn bilingual household. With her photographer husband, she formed a photography company. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 37, they decided to create a photo project called HER2 to raise awareness about the possibility of cancer in people under 40 and the importance of relationships and love during adversity. The photos documenting Anna’s journey to her recovery were published in several publications and are part of the Susan G. Komen rebranding campaign. In 2020, the Covid 19 pandemic became a new subject for the team and a new photography project. Community Heroes captures quiet heroes, mostly women, who volunteer to run food distribution centers in their neighborhood for people in need. Photos appeared in several articles and will be part of an exhibition. One of her photos was included in the ICPs exhibition ICP Concerned: Global Images for Global Crisis. Anna is also proud of her new role as a home teacher to her 1st grader, mastering songs about months or days and improving her math skills, as well.

REFUGE IN HELL: The Story of the Berlin Jewish Hospital and The Jews’ Hospital-Mount Sinai Hospital of New York

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Tuesday, JANUARY 19 at 7pm (EST)
A talk by Josef Machac, MD

RECORDING ON YOUTUBE

Based both on personal experience and researched material.
When soldiers of the Red Army took Berlin in April 1945, they came upon a hospital compound with 800 living patients and staff, all Jews, having survived the Nazi era right in the heart of the Third Reich. This is part of the remarkable story of the origins and two-hundred-year history of the Berlin Jewish Hospital, and an institution modelled after it – The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

The event was presented live online on ZOOM.

Q&A was moderated by Christopher Harwood, PhD, Columbia University.

Josef Machac
Josef Machac, MD, was born in Prerov, Czechoslovakia and lived in Olomouc until 1964, when his family emigrated and settled in the town of Bohemia on Long Island, NY. He received his bachelor and MD degrees in 1975 and 1978, respectively, at Brown University, and received postgraduate training at the Mount Sinai Hospital in NY. From 1986 until 1995, he headed the stress ECG and nuclear cardiology laboratory at Mount Sinai. In 1992, he became Director of Nuclear Medicine, and in 2003, Professor of Radiology and Medicine. Dr. Macha? has authored or co-authored 120 scientific papers in peer-reviewed publications, and 18 book chapters, and has trained numerous residents and fellows. He retired in July 2016. For the last 7 years, he has been volunteering part-time as a general internist and cardiologist at the Bergen Volunteer Medical Initiative (BVMI) clinic in Hackensack, NJ for working people who cannot afford health insurance, where he initiated an obesity treatment program, which now continues with funded support. He has been an active member of the Czechoslovak Society for Arts and Sciences (SVU) since 1980. Dr. Machac also engages in beekeeping, brewing beer, travel and reading, folk dancing, Yoga, Tai Chi and other martial arts.

Berlin

This event is organized by the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU), New York Chapter, with the support of Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA).

3-Minute Challenge: Covid Edition, EPISODE 2

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ONLINE EVENT on Zoom on Wednesday, NOVEMBER 18 at 7 pm (EDT)

Please REGISTER HERE to receive the link to the Zoom event. We will email you the link 2 days before th eevent.

An online mini-series presenting three-minute videos of Czech and Slovak artists and professionals in New York and their reflections on how the Covid reality affected their work and projects. In English

EPISODE 2 will feature three accomplished creative New Yorkers, each in a different field: Daniela Vancurová (pre-school teacher and consultant), René G. Vašícek (writer and educator), and Pavel Kraus (visual artist).
Moderated by Christopher Harwood, Q&A will follow the presentations.
Have a beverage of your choice by your side to toast to New York’s better future.

Poster

Daniela VANCUROVÁ, born in Prague, received her MA from Teachers College at Charles University in Prague in 1987 and additional BA credits from Manhattan Community College. Since 1988 she has worked at Brooklyn Free Space, a cooperative preschool implementing a learning-through-play philosophy, recognizing each child’s individuality, learning style and interest. Due to the Covid 19 epidemic, the school had to reorganize and reinvent its unique style. For medical concerns Daniela was furloughed until the virus is under control. She misses her little “jitterbugs” and hopes to return soon to the school. But meanwhile, she appreciates having the time to pursue her interest in Japanese cuisine, creating finger puppets or taking walks.

René Georg VASICEK was born in Austria in 1969 to Czech parents defecting from Czechoslovakia. He grew up in the pine barrens of Eastern Long Island and has lived in New York City since the Nineties. His writing has appeared in Wigleaf, Hinterland, Bellevue Literary Review, Western Humanities Review, Gargoyle, Mid-American Review, Barrelhouse, Post Road, and elsewhere. René earned an MFA at Sarah Lawrence College and was awarded an NEA fellowship. He is an adjunct lecturer at Lehman College in the Bronx and at BMCC in Manhattan. He lives in Astoria, Queens with his wife and two sons. His debut novel The Defectors is loosely based on experiences of Czechs and Slovaks in a totalitarian regime. He also enjoys boogie-boarding and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence in the Cosmos.

Pavel KRAUS, a native of Pilsen, emigrated after the Soviet invasion in 1968 and eventually arrived in the USA. He received his MFA from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago in 1974. Since 1984 he has been residing and working in New York City and since 2000, at his studio in DUMBO Brooklyn. Over the past 40 years, he has been focusing on an extensive body of work entitled “Sex, Death, Offerings”. These works incorporated variations of media/techniques including the ancient pierre dure technique and the marriage of organic/inorganic elements. Pavel’s works can be found in private collections and have been exhibited extensively nationally and in Europe and reviewed and published in various publications, including Art in America. In 2014, Pavel had a solo exhibition “Enigma” at the Stephen Romano Gallery in DUMBO, Brooklyn, curated by David Ebony. His 40-Year-Retrospective was reviewed in David Ebony’s Top Ten New York Gallery Shows of 2016. From 2016 to 2018 Kraus completed five solo shows culminating in Roma in January 2018 at the Long Island University Brooklyn campus. During the epidemic, he continues going to his studio and working on new projects inspired by the distant past.

VIEW EPISODE 1

Our YouTube videos were made available to you thanks to previous grants from the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs and BBLA, and donations from some of you.

Please consider making your tax-deductible donation HERE.
Thank you!

Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU)
New York Chapter

Joseph Ben-David passed

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Joseph Ben-David

It is with great sadness we announce the passing of our member Rev. Joseph Ben-David on October 7, 2020 at the age 100. His spirituality, sense of humor and appreciation of life will be missed.

Joseph Ben-David was born in Prague in 1920. He lived with his parents and his younger brother in the center of the Czechoslovak capital. His father owned a printing ink factory and, after leaving high school, he joined him at work and learned his trade. As a teenager, Joseph became aware of the Unitarian Church in Prague and became a speaker and activist for social causes. He was also a youth leader for the Zionist Youth Movement. Joseph’s father died shortly after the Nazis occupied Prague in 1939 and, in the fall of that year, Joseph left for Palestine. His mother intended to follow but was deported to a concentration camp where she died.

Joseph arrived in Palestine in 1940 and settled in Tel Aviv. He established a lab where he produced printing media – ink, cement, glue and printing rollers. As a conscientious objector during the Arab-Israeli War in 1948, Joseph worked as a hygiene officer and later became a sanitary officer in Jerusalem. He also continued his activist efforts in social justice.

Joseph moved to New York City in 1954 and soon became involved in the American Humanist Association in New York, first as a speaker and later as chapter president.

Over the course of a long career he attracted large numbers of followers with his teachings on humanist psychology, philosophy and spiritual identity. A highly motivated public speaker and educator, he helped his followers interact on a foundation of reason, mutual understanding and self-actualization.

In 1973, he founded the independent Church of Humanism and its integral Humanist Foundation in the Humanist spirit of Unitarian minister Dr. Norbert ?apek. As Senior Minister of the Church, and having taken a vow of poverty, he delivered countless lectures based on the writings of the most enlightened voices of our time, including Wilhelm Reich, Erich Fromm, Abraham Maslow, Hannah Arendt, Fritz Perls and Germaine Greer.

The Church of Humanism elected the playwright and civil rights freedom activist Václav Havel as recipient of the Church’s Humanist of the Year 1979 award during Havel’s imprisonment under the Communist regime. Havel later became president of the Czech Republic and met Ben-David in New York City.

Ben-David is survived by his wife of 50 years, Alyson Tufts Ben-David, his son Daniel Ben-David, and five grandchildren.

Video at National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library in Cedar Rapids, IA

Election Observation and the Democratic Uprising in Belarus

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ONLINE EVENT OCTOBER 15, 2020 at 7pm (EDT)

ZOOM RECORDING OF THE EVENT

A lecture by MARY STEGMAIER, PhD
Associate Professor, Truman School of Public Affairs, University of Missouri

poster

How do we know if elections meet international democratic standards? In this presentation, Dr. Mary Stegmaier will discuss the process of international election observation done by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), her experience observing parliamentary elections in Belarus, and the Belarusian democratic uprising that began in August after the rigged Presidential Election. The presentation will conclude with a discussion about OSCE election observation in the US.

Moderated by Christopher Harwood, Ph.D., Columbia University

Mary Stegmaier, Ph.D., a long-time member of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU), is the Vice Provost for International Programs and an Associate Professor in the Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri. As a scholar of comparative politics, she has spent extensive time researching in the Czech Republic. Her work on international elections and voting behavior has been published in academic journals. Dr. Stegmaier has also contributed to the Washington Post and the Brookings Institution blog and served as an international election observer with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Albania, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, and Macedonia.

Mary Stegmaier

In cooperation with the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, NY and with the support of the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA) in New York.

Czech Vintage Travel Posters

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ONLINE EVENT – WATCH HERE

A talk and presentation by NICHOLAS LOWRY
President and Principal Auctioneer of Swann Auction Galleries, New York City

N Lowry An avid collector of vintage posters, Nicholas discussed the treasures from the Lowry Collection – a selection of Czech vintage posters advertising travel throughout the Czech lands, spanning from the 1890s through the 1960s. Born to a Czech father who fled Czechoslovakia with his family in 1938, NICHOLAS D. LOWRY lived for four years in Prague in the years immediately following the Velvet Revolution (1990-1994). From a family of antiquarian book dealers, father and son together have amassed the largest collection of Czech posters in the world outside of the Czech museums. They collect out of passion, driven by their curiosity and love of history, culture and tradition. Within the collection are several hundred posters advertising travel throughout the Czech lands, spanning from the 1890s through the 1960s. These wonderful images not only serve to satisfy any feelings of personal nostalgia but also cannot fail to stir the soul of any Czech who sees them, much the same way one’s mood might be lifted by listening to Bedrich Smetana’s Ma Vlast (My Country). Nicholas’ interest in vintage posters is more than just a family past time.

As President and Principal Auctioneer of Swann Auction Galleries in New York City, Nicholas is also director of the auction house’s Vintage Poster Department and has appeared for over 20 years as an appraiser on the PBS Television series Antiques Roadshow as the poster specialist. Posters from the Lowry Collection have been exhibited at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library and the Dutch Poster Museum.

PUTIN, TRUMP and the U.S. ELECTIONS in 2016

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ONLINE EVENT – WATCH HERE
Thursday, AUGUST 20, 2020 at 7pm

A lecture by Igor Lukes, PhD, Boston University

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The electoral victory of Donald Trump in 2016 surprised everyone, including the winner, the vanquished, and all the specialists. Even today, almost four years later, bitterly divided citizens struggle to understand what happened.

The talk seeks to cast light on several lesser-known factors behind Trump’s victory four years ago and it endorses the view that the warning lights.

Moderated by Christopher Harwood, Columbia University

In cooperation with the Harriman Institute at Columbia University

3-Minute Challenge, EPISODE 1

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GOING VIRTUAL!

Zoom Event on Tuesday, August 11, 2020

3-Minute Challenge Episode 1

VIDEO on YOUTUBE

The 3-Minute Challenge series is a spin-off of our “6-Minute Challenge” program held at the Bohemian National Hall. A kind of an oral history project, it presents Czech and Slovak artists, scholars and professionals in New York, and their reflections on how their work has been affected by the current (Covid 19) reality. They are challenged to shoot a 3-minute video.

EPISODE 1 features actress and singer Katarina Vizina, and visual artists Jan Pecarka, and Hana Shannon.

Ruzena Bunza died (2016-2020)

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Ruzena Bunza, a long-time member of the Czechoslovak Society of Art and Sciences, passed away peacefully in her home on June 23, 2020, just one month shy of her 104th birthday.

Ruzena Bunza, Photo Jiri Dolezel, 2018

Photo by Jiri Dolezel

Ruzena Bunza was born in Rousinov, Czech Republic, near Brno. She was the youngest of four children of Ludmila and Alois Kadlcik, the region’s Postmaster. She graduated from the Commerce Academy and then worked as a legal secretary in a law firm where she met her future husband, Dr. Bohumir Bunza. They married in 1940 and started their life together in Bojkovice, where her husband had a position as a District Judge. In 1946, Dr. Bunza was elected to the Czech Parliament. He was in charge of an investigation of crimes committed by members of the Communist party against German citizens during their relocation from Czechoslovakia at the end of WWII. His involvement in this investigation made him a target of the Communist party and necessitated his escaping Czechoslovakia after the Communist takeover in 1948.

Ruzena was unable to leave with him and she stayed behind in Bojkovice with her two young children, Peter and Helen. They lived there until 1956, when the family relocated to Brno in the hope of escaping constant surveillance and persecution. They stayed in Brno until their own escape to Italy in 1967. Ruzena—together with her daughter, Helen, and her fiancé, Mojmir—were successful in escaping the country. Her son, Peter, was caught at the border, he was imprisoned for 7 months until the Prague Spring, when he was released and was able to leave the country as well.

Ruzena reunited with her husband in Italy, and they lived in Rome for the next 10 years while he worked in the Center of the World Christian Studies. They organized various Czech church activities and helped to establish the Czech Pilgrimage House in Dolomites. They were also very involved in helping many Czech and Slovak refugees in Italian refugee camps.

In 1977, Ruzena and Bohumir retired and moved to New York City to be closer to their children and their families. They immediately became very involved in the Czech community and especially in the New York chapter of the SVU, where Ruzena was membership secretary and Dr. Bunza was Treasurer. Together they organized the Society’s cultural programs and Ruzena was a distributor of the Zpravy SVU magazine and other publications. For her outstanding service, she received the Achievement Award in 2010. Ruzena was a member of the Czech choir, Velehrad, for many years. She was also an avid traveler and enjoyed baking and gardening.

In 2018 in a video interview for Czech television, she described her recollections of meeting the first Czech president, T.G. Masaryk, in her hometown of Rousinov when she was a schoolgirl. That same year, Jiri Dolezel, photographer and founder of the Memory Traces project, interviewed her for his research on Czech waves of emigration to the United States. Her story became a part of his 2019 exhibition “Memory Traces—Exile/Emigration to the USA” on view at the Narodni Budova in New York City.

Ruzena was predeceased by her husband, Bohumir, in 1990, and her son, Peter, in 2018. She is survived by her daughter, Helen; her daughter-in-law, Greta; and her three grandchildren, Katrin, Carole and Mark, as well as her three great-grandchildren, Julia, Erik and Martine. A memorial service will be announced in the coming months.

In the meantime …

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Dear all,

We hope that you are healthy and safe in these trying times. We miss you!

Until we can meet again at the Bohemian National Hall in Manhattan, we invite you to visit our new YOUTUBE channel and view six events that you might have missed. The videos are divided into shorter segments for easier viewing.

They include Escaping from Czechoslovakia (2016), stories of New Yorkers who escaped from communist Czechoslovakia, and Posezeni: Remembering New York’s “Little Bohemia (2018), an entertaining evening of memories of four old-timers who live(d) in the neighborhood of the Bohemian National Hall. Brilliant young Czech and Slovaks are featured in one edition of our popular 6-Minute Challenge series (Nov 2018). Enjoy the performances by Czech and Slovak Newyorkers -musicians and singers- in The Tribute to the Art of the Folksong (2018), and the concert 5+1:Jana Jarkovska (2019) by the gifted Czech flutist Jana Jarkovska presenting work of five young Czech women composers. Learn about the experiences of three Americans living in 1990s Prague (2019).

SVU-NY YOUTUBE VIDEOS HERE

Please subscribe! Your free subscription will help us qualify for a customized name of the link. Feel free to leave us a comment.
SVU NY Youtube
Your donations will help us make other videos available to the public.
Any donation made to the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences in New York is tax-deductible.
Please make your check payable to: Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences NY, and
mail it to: SVU-NY, c/o Suzanna Halsey, 515 Avenue I, #1b, Brooklyn, NY 11230, or

you may use your credit card via our PayPal account.

Sad news

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It is with great sadness that we learned that our former longtime president Professor Milan Fryscak, Ph.D., and Professor at NYU has passed due to Covid 19 complications. Our deepest sympathy goes to his wife Eva and their two sons. We will miss his smile and great sense of humor.

Read more in SVU’s REMEMBERING.

The 6-Minute Challenge, XII- CANCELLED!

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March 24, 2020 at 7pm
Bohemian National Hall, 3rd floor

We regret to announce that due to Covid -19, all March events at the Bohemian National Hall have been cancelled.

We hope to reschedule the 6-Minute Challenge in May 2020. Hopefully by then, the virus will weaken and cease to exist.

In the meantime, you can visit our Youtube channel to catch up on the events that you couldn’t attend. Please subscribe!
SVU NY YOUTUBE Channel

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Come meet Czech and Slovak artists, professionals, students, and scholars who will be challenged to introduce the subject of their project, research, or studies in a short presentation limited to six minutes and in the language appropriate for a non-expert audience. In English.

Moderated by Christopher Harwood, PhD, Columbia University

Presenters: Roman Balaz, PhD (Fulbright researcher at Boston University – social work), Jaroslav Bendl, PhD (Icahn School of Medicine – data scientist), Jan Bierhanzl, PhD (Fulbright Scholar at Penn State University – philosophy), Kristyna Kustkova (student at Mannes School of Music – soprano), Vlado Lackovic (Natives Group – digital marketing), Simona Lysakova (BA student at Hunter College – psychology), Marek Soltis (A/V engineer and musician) and Rene Georg Vasicek (English literature lecturer and author of “The Defectors”)

Free. Open to the Public.
Suggested donation $5

Light refreshment and networking will follow the presentations.
RSVP

Organized by the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU/NY), New York chapter, with support of the Consulates General of both the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic in New York.

A Slow Revolution: Early Steps Towards Jewish Emancipation in Bohemia, 1780s-1860s

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February 20, 2020 at 7pm
Bohemian National Hall
321 E 73 St, 3rd floor
New York City

A lecture by Jindrich Toman, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

The talk will guide the audience through select points that mark legal and cultural emancipation of Bohemian Jewry in the decades between the so-called Josephinian Decrees of the 1780s and the Monarchy’s liberal constitution of 1867. We will trace the culture of the disappearing ghettoes, attempts at a Czech-Jewish dialogue in the 1840s, the revolutionary year 1848, and conclude with the liberal 1860s.

Jindrich Tomanis a Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has been following an academic path defined by languages and cultures of Central Europe, initially focusing on linguistics and gradually shifting his research interests towards cultural history and visual culture. A concurrent line of interest focuses on Jewish culture in Bohemia. He teaches courses in the area of literary and cultural studies, including “Jewish Prague.”

Free to the public. Suggested donation: $5.00
Limited seating.

RSVP

Organized by the Society for the History of Czechoslovak Jews in New York,
and the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences, New York Chapter.
In cooperation with the Consulate General of the Czech Republic in New York
and with the support of the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association
and the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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6-Minute Challenge, Vol 11

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Wed, December 4, 2019 at 7pm
Bohemian National Hall, 3rd fl.
321 E 73 St, NYC

Czech and Slovak artists, professionals, students and scholars are challenged to introduce the subject of their project, research or studies in a short presentation limited to six minutes. In English.

Moderated by Christopher Harwood, PhD, Columbia University
Presenters: Kanala Bolvanská ( UN Relief Program assistant/ meditation instructor), Eva Derman, PhD (Jewish history, SHCSJ), Nicole Hubka (student at Marymount Manhattan College —Int’l relations), Kaneenika Janaková (ultra-distance runner), Tomáš Kellner (Chief Storyteller at GE), Magdalena Kubecková, PhD (researcher/translator/author), Nikita Štepanenko (student at Manhattan School of Music—piano), Lenka Wooten (author of young-adults novels) and Klára Ziková English (mezzo soprano).

Registration

Free. Suggested donation $5.00
Organized by the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU), New York Chapter in cooperation with the Consulate General of the Slovak Republic in New York.

Flyer

5+1 JANA JARKOVSKÁ A flute recital

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Monday, SEPTEMBER 23 at 7 pm
Bohemian National Hall, 3rd floor
321 E 73 St, NYC

A leading young Czech flutist Jana Jarkovská presented compositions for solo flute and flute & electronics by five contemporary Czech women composers, Sylvie Bodorová, Eliška Cílková, Ivana Loudová, Terezie Švarcová, and Sonya Vetchá. Appreciating the flute’s wide range of melodic and dramatic expression, each composer uses the flute to speak in her own independent and distinctive voice.

Introduction by one of the composers Eliška Cílková.

Jana Jarkovská will also perform at the Boston Flute Festival in October 2019.

PHOTOS OF THE EVENT
YouTube Video

5+1 Flute recital

Jana Jarkovská, a leading Czech flutist of the younger generation, studied for six years at the Prague Conservatory. In 2013, she graduated from the Academy of Performing Arts (HAMU) in Prague and in 2015, she received her soloist diploma from the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, Sweden. She spent one semester at the Conservatorio di Musica “Giuseppe Verdi” in Milan (Italy), as an assistant professor in the Erasmus Placement Program. In 2018, she earned her PhD in Interpretation Theory from the Academy of Performing Arts (HAMU) in Prague, and released her CD of contemporary Czech music “Pidluke-padluke”. She currently teaches at the Conservatory in Teplice, North Bohemia, performing mostly as a member of the award-winning Duo du Rêve (flute & piano). As a soloist and chamber music player, she collaborates with a number of contemporary composers premiering their works and regularly records for the Czech Radio. Jana is working on a new CD release in 2020 as part of her contemporary project with Czech female composers. Next month, she will perform at the Boston Flute Festival.
www.janajarkovska.cz

Eliška Cílková, composer, began playing the piano at the age of four. She later studied composition and conducting at the Jaroslav Ježek Conservatory in Prague. She received her master’s degree in composition from the Academy of Performing Arts. In 2014-2015, she was a Fulbright research scholar in musical composition at Columbia University. Her electroacoustic project “Pripyat Piano – Sound Documentary of the Chernobyl Zone” was enthusiastically received in Europe. Eliška collaborates with diverse European artists and has composed music for documentary films and theatrical performances. Her work has been performed at numerous festivals in the Czech Republic and abroad. In 2015, she received the AHUV prize for “Best Czech Composer of Contemporary Music”, and in 2016, the international Musica Nova prize for the “Best Electroacoustic Composition.” She is currently pursuing her PhD in Musicology at Charles University in Prague.
www.eliskacilkova.com