About Tamburash Orchestra & Instruments

The Czech Music Museum of Texas is part of the open-air part of the Czech Heritage and Cultural Center in La Grange. The museum is situated in the house which used to belong to Jonathon and Peggy Kalich (Kalič). It was built in the 1890s, and much later was donated by the owners to the Heritage Center. In 2000 the building was moved to the current area from Schulenburg.

 

The exhibition in the Music Museum is displayed in four rooms dedicated to four music categories: sacral music, classical Czech composers, polka, and folk and dance Czech music.

 

 

By the way, not everybody knows that polka is a Czech dance which is also popular in other European countries, including Poland, Germany, and Austria. I mention this because I have heard so many times: "Poland? Ah yes, polka!". No, it is not a Polish national dance.

 

 

 

Talking about music and the museum, a good time to mention the tamburash and the Houston Tamburash Orchestra. Tamburash is a string instrument similar to the lute, from the same instrument group that originally come from the gusla. The latter is played with a bow and is traditionally used in the Balkans. 

 

 

The Czech Tamburash Orchestra was organized by Josef Drozda in 1932 in Houston. Mato Gujranovic was the orchestra director. The man was a painter and a musician as well. He came to Houston from Galveston and taught music in the city.

 

 

The Tamburash Orchestra was a band of traditional Czech string instruments from the tamburash group such as bisernica, kontrashic, bracas (equivalents of violins and cellos), bugarias (similar to wood strings), and berda. The latter instrument is six feet and six inches high. All the instruments have four strings and some have them tuned on the same range or two different ones. The smallest piece in the orchestra was 18 inches long. A full tamburash orchestra has 32 instruments, the Texas Tamburash Orchestra had only 9. 

 

 

However, they managed to play not only polka and other folk music, but also classical music pieces by Dvořak, Smetana, and some Russian composers as well. The youngest musician in the group was Miss Helen Vajčik, whose father was the orchestra coorganizer. The girl started playing with the band when she was 10.

Clipping source: Valcik, Stephen. Věstník (West, Tex.), Vol. 39, No. 48, Ed. 1 Wednesday, November 28, 1951, newspaper, November 28, 1951; West, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth626401/: accessed November 24, 2021), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Slovanska Podporujici Jednota Statu Texas.

PS

In the Museum, we did not see any tamburash, dulcimers only.

Source: 

• "The Czech Pioneers of the Southwest. The History of a People in the Development of a Nation", Henry R Maresh and Estelle Hudson, 1934, 1962, 1996.
• "The Roots of Texas Music", Joe W Specht, Lawrence Clayton, Texas A&M University Press, 2005.
  Photos: Texas Czech Culture and Heritage Center, La Grange, TX