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A violinist from Illinois with deep Czech roots, he built an international career in the early recording era and was praised for both his technique and stage presence. His surviving recordings suggest a performer who moved easily between concert showpieces and arrangements of Czech and Slovak songs.
by Milan Lusk
Milan Lusk was an American violinist born in Chicago in 1893. Contemporary newspaper coverage described him as an Illinois-born artist who had traveled widely in Europe, and later reference records identify him as the son of the painter Marie Koupal Lusk.
His career is easiest to trace through his recordings. The Discography of American Historical Recordings lists sessions from 1919 to 1926 for Victor, Edison, and Gennett, including solo pieces and arrangements of Czech and Slovak songs, sometimes with pianist Ludmila Vojackova. A 1926 profile in the Daily Illini also presented him as a pupil of Otakar Ševčík and noted that he had attracted the attention of Queen Marie of Romania, for whom he performed a violin transcription called Lady Hamilton's Waltz.
Lusk died in Prague on August 31, 1932. Although many basic biographical details remain scattered, the recordings that survive give a vivid sense of a musician who connected American concert life with Central European musical traditions.