Ottokar T. Cadek papers

Violinist, conductor, and teacher Ottokar Cadek (1897-1956) contributed significantly to promoting the importance of classical music in Alabama. Between 1933 to 1956, he was a performer with the Birmingham Civic Symphony Orchestra and a distinguished member of the music department at the University of Alabama. He was from a long-established musical family whose members continue to hold prominent positions in the classical music world.

Cadek (pronounced Cha-dek) was born on 20 February 1897, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the second of four children of Marguerite Guirard and Joseph Cadek, of Swiss and Bohemian heritage, respectively. Joseph Cadek (1868-1927), a prominent European violinist, emigrated from Bohemia's capital of Prague (now in the Czech Republic) and settled in Chattanooga in 1892.

Cadek married Nashville native Sara Hitchcock in 1924, and in 1930 their daughter Marie was born. During the Great Depression, the quartet's performance schedule slowed, and Cadek was faced with difficulties in supporting his family. He left the quartet in 1933, after a final performance in Birmingham, and later that year, he joined the Birmingham Civic Symphony Orchestra (present-day Alabama Symphony Orchestra) first as its concertmaster and then as conductor. After the war broke out, the orchestra shut down, and in 1943, Cadek and his family moved to Tuscaloosa. The following year, he took up his duties developing the string program at the University of Alabama. On 25 July 1956, Cadek was a member of a quartet performing one of Johannes Brahms's quartets when he collapsed on stage and died of a heart attack. He was buried in Nashville's Mount Olivet Cemetery.