This unique annual event will take place for the sixth time on August 4–18, 2024 in Horažďovice, Czech Republic. Otakar Ševčík was a well-known string teacher who taught at major European and American schools in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and to this day his method is considered one of the most sophisticated and comprehensive. Thanks to its all-inclusiveness, it enables all string performers to improve their playing.
Please accept our invitation to this 13-day summer gathering, during which you'll meet up with extraordinary musicians, get the opportunity to learn more about Otakar Ševčík, the “father of modern string pedagogy” and, together with the other participants, experience unforgettable moments in magnificent venues.
Otakar Ševčík (22 March 1852 Horažďovice – 18. January 1934 Písek), the renowned violinist, teacher, and author of a world-famous violin method, acquired his first musical education from his father Josef Ševčík, who taught him to sing and to play on both the piano and the violin. At the age of ten, Ševčík enrolled at the Academic Grammar School in Prague, and four years later he was granted an exceptional application to study at the Prague Conservatoire, first in the class of Antonín Sitt, later under Antonín Bennewitz.
Horažďovice is a home to approximately five thousand residents. The oldest settlement records go back thousand years before century and it has been declared a town in 1292 by king Wenceslas II. The most attractive features which lure tourists to visit the town are mainly historic buildings, a renaissance palace, gothic Franciscan monastery, remnants of the gothic town fortification and a close fortified settlement Prácheň which dates back to a period between the 11th and the 13th century.
