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LEGENDARY
Prof.
TIBOR ANDRASOVAN Dr. hc
1917-2001
Tibor’s grandfather
comes from village Ondrasova near Martin. He was a boot-maker and used
to come to sell his boots to Banska Bystrica at the Radvansky
jarmok-Radvansky market. Att hat time his name was Ondrasovan as
man from Ondrasova. In those days the traveling was slow and dangerous
and often while returning to Ondrasova over the hills from Radvan,
he was robbed of all his earnings. During one of these markets at Radvan
he fell in love and got married right away and never returned to Ondrasova.
Tibor's father was born in Banska Bystrica and the name they recorded
for him was Andrasovan. Tiborius Andrasovan was born in Slovenska Lupca,
near Banska Bystrica in Central Slovakia on April 3, 1917, during his
mother’s visit to her family.
He moved to Bratislava
alone in 1936 to study at the University’s Philosophical Faculty,
musical science and pedagogy. He finished the University in 1941. In 1949
there was a big exodus of Czech University professors from Slovak
Universities and he became a substitute professor at Teachers Academy in
Modra. Later on he was named state professor at Teachers Academy in
Bratislava. In 1941 he continues his studies at the Music and Dramatic
Academy in Bratislava. His teachers included: Eugen Suchon, Alexander
Moyzes, Anna Kafendova, Kornel Schimpl, Pavol Dedecek, Metod Dolezil,
Jozef Hutter and others. He graduated in 1944. In 1945 he enters the
Master School of conducting in Prague and enters competition for a post of
conductor of the Opera at Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava. He
becomes the conductor and dramaturge in 1945 until 1957. In 1954 he was a
conductor at Champs Elysee Theatre in Paris. In 1955 he also became the
artistic director of the National Slovak Folk Artistic Ensemble-SLUK.
Same year he also won a competition in arranging Arabian songs for grand
orchestra in Baghdad. In 1957-58 he is a conductor of philharmonic
orchestra and Opera in Ulan-Bator, Mongolia, 1960 he was in Tbilisi,
capital of Gruzinia where he wrote music for a film: "Interrupted
song." Later he became conductor in Tokyo, Japan, stayed there for a
year and returned several times later to lecture at the Musaschino and
Nippon Universities and Tokyo Arts Center. From Japan he went around the
world for three months on a cruise ship Oron Say as a piano player. Later
he worked in Egypt, India, Burma and Indonesia. He composed Egyptian
national anthem in 1957, Alla Hu-Agbar, when they won the war over Suez
against the British and French. He visited USA four times, first time in
1959 with SLUK. He returned to USA also privately on many occasions.
He traveled practically whole world as a conductor and a piano player. He
returned to Czecho-Slovakia in 1968 and became again director of SLUK
until 1973. Since then he is a free artist, he conducts in theatre, radio
and elsewhere.
His composition activity
is very rich and includes various genres. From scenic music, through film
creation to songs and dances for Lucnica and SLUK, music for
choirs and symphonic orchestras.
OPERAS
include: Figliar Gelo, libretto Holly (comic Opera), The White Disease,
libretto Karel Capek (musical drama), The Gameskeeper’s Wife,
libretto P. O. Hviezdoslav (national opera), In Zemplin, libretto Duri
Kralik
(folk opera), Return, libretto J. Krcmery (opera for television),
Shah and Shaharazad, libretto T. Andrasovan (oriental opera) to be
premiered soon in Cairo, Egypt, Vrabcek Mojcek (House Sparrow
Mojcek), libretto T. Andrasovan, text Reznik (opera for children),
St. Cyril and Methodius life (oratorio-opera for church), it premiered in
the Dom of St. martin in Bratislava in 1994.
BALLETS
include:
Orpheus and Eurydice, The Song of Peace, he Mansion house on a Black Rock,
Icarus, Festival of Solstice written for 100 anniversary on National
Theater in Prague and Slovakia in Dance.
FILMS
include: Janosik, Master Hangman, Pastorale from Ocova, Wooden
Village, Katka, Quadrille, Native land, Flowers of the Tatras and many
more, all-together 160 films.
WORKS FOR SYMPHONIC
ORCHESTRA include: Small Goral
Overture, Runner’s Overture, Young Years, Spring Suite, Echoes of the
Uprising Mountains and others.
CHOIR CREATIONS
include:
Into the yard, to Courtship, Haymaking, Jan's Songs, From my Country,
Flowers, and the Wind, On a Spring Sunday, Calls, Around Vazec and
others.
CREATIONS FOR ARTISTIC
ENSEMBLES include: Detva Revel, Cerkany Dance, Painted Robbers, Youth from under Polana,
Shepherd's Dream, Valassky dance, On Detva Farms and others.
I have been going to the
festivals in Vychodna and Detva since 1987 and Tibor is always there at
every program. This year I finally met him and we became friends. This
April he turned 80, but you couldn't tell by his looks and actions. He
is like young man, still active and creative, just finishing work on two
CD’s to be released before Christmas.
At this year's Detva
festival children folk dance groups paid a tribute to Tibor Andrasovan
for his life’s work and creations, but most of all for his music for a
film "Native Land" and for his work with folk ensembles. Matica
Slovenska has also awarded him on the occasion of his life jubilee a Gold
Medal of Matica Slovenska presented to him at the end of this program.
GO
TO SLOVAK ARTISTS
Published in the
Slovak Heritage Live newsletter Volume 5, No. 3, Fall 1997
Copyright © Vladimir Linder 1997
3804 Yale
Street, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, V5C 1P6
The above article and photographs may
not be copied, reproduced, republished, or redistributed by any means
including electronic, without the express written permission of Vladimir
Linder. All
rights reserved.
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