Josef Jan Kovařík

Josef Jan Kovařík (July 11, 1870 – February 19, 1951) was an American musician.

Early life Josef Jan Kovařík was born in Spillville, Iowa, to a Czech-American family. He received his first music lessons from his father, Jan Josef Kovařík (1850–1939), who, at the age of 18, had come from the village of Všeteč in Bohemia (then part of Austria-Hungary) to the village of Spillville, and worked there for many decades as an organist, choirmaster, and music teacher, as well as in other Czech-German communities in Iowa and Minnesota.

Musical career Josef studied at the Milwaukee School of Music, and from 1889 at the Prague Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1892. While there, he met the composer Antonín Dvořák by chance, when Dvořák noticed a young man reading an American newspaper in František Urbánek's Prague bookstore. Dvořák, who had already agreed to go to the United States and head the National Conservatory there, offered Kovařík the position of his secretary, and in 1892 Kovařík, along with Dvořák and several of his family, arrived in New York.

Since Dvořák did not tolerate the New York urbanized rhythm of life, Kovařík invited him to his home town of Spillville, (where there was a strong expatriate Czech community) during the summer holidays of 1893;

Later years Kovařík was appointed professor of violin at the New York Conservatory of Music on Dvořák’s recommendation.