Otakar Ševčík

Otakar Ševčík (22 March 185218 January 1934) was a Czech violinist and influential teacher. He was known as a soloist and an ensemble player, including his occasional performances with Eugène Ysaÿe.

Biography

Ševčík was born in Horažďovice, Bohemia, Austrian Empire. His father was the local village schoolmaster. Although he received his first music lessons from his father, he studied under Antonín Bennewitz at the Prague Conservatory (1866–1870) during which period a disease caused him to have his left eye enucleated. He was also taught by Hans Sitt.

After 1873, he was concertmaster at the Prague Interim (Provisional) Theatre and the Komische Opera at the Ring Theatre in Vienna. From 1875-92 he was professor of violin at the music school of the Russian Music Society in Kiev,

Ševčík taught violin at the Imperial Royal Academy of Music in Vienna, from 1909. He visited the United States four times between 1922 and 1932 to teach.

Ševčík was famous as a violin teacher in Salzburg, Vienna, Prague, Kharkiv, Kiev, London, Boston, Chicago, and New York City.

His violin studies and violin methods were published in several books and are still important as major teaching tools. These studies include The Little Ševčík, an elementary violin tutor, which teaches the semitone system in 149 exercises, the School of Violin Technics (Schule der Violintechnik, four parts, 1880), First Position, vol. II, 2nd to 7th Positions, and Vol. III, Shifting, and Preparatory Exercises in Double-Stopping, Opus 9, and the Schule der Bogentechnik (six parts, 1893).