Blanche Zellmer 37514 151st Avenue Montgomery MN 56069 (507) 364-7759 Work Samples Audio: Morava Krasna Zem Waltz Muziko Ceska Polka Na Severu Dalekem To hear the work samples, Windows Media Player is required. If you do not have it installed, you can download it for free here: Download Windows Media Player

Montgomery Czech Singers Czech music The Montgomery Czech Singers is a 22-member group that sings ethnic Czech music accompanied by a concertinist. Led by veteran musician Blanche Zellmer, the group strives for perfection in its Czech language songs, and for preserving its ethnic heritage. They also sing a polka mass accompanied by a four-piece band. While performing, the members wear traditional Czech costumes. Available: We are available mainly during weekends; distance negotiable Space: Area required is 14 by 16 ft. If sound equipment is used, the area needs to be larger. Fee: Negotiable

Additional Information:
The Montgomery Czech singers are a group of people committed to preserving the Czech heritage through song. Group members hail primarily from the Montgomery/New Prague/Lonsdale area, arguably the area of Minnesota with the greatest concentration of Czech people. Blanche Zellmer leads the group, and she is the one who started it in 1985, by putting an advertisement in a local newspaper. The ad invited people to come, and offered help with the language and music to anyone who requested it. Response to the ad was mainly people from who knew Czech, but a few who did not also responded. Some of those who responded had studied Czech privately with Blanche. In 1976 she started with some other local people to preserve the Czech language, teaching adults and children. It is the music that attracts the people, not the words. Blanche describes the waltzes as "tear jerky," about lost love or going off to war. For example, here is the text of a very common waltz, "At the Spring" (U studánky sedìla)

Sitting at the spring, gazing into the water, She spied a little fish as she was drinking water. Then she says, little fish you cannot speak, I heard you can foretell the future. You know what troubles my heart, You know where my lover is. The fish replies, "your lover is in a strange land. He has a new girlfriend. He won't have any good fortune because he cast you aside.

The Montgomery Czech Singers obtain songs from Blanche's library where she has collected a large number of her own written arrangements. The group also gleans material from tapes from the Czech republic by Czech dance bands that sing the old songs. In addition, the group performs songs remembered from oral tradition such as "I am An Orphan" (Já Jsem Sirotek), and polkas such as Barbara Polka (Baruška), Clover By the Water (Jetelíèek u Vody). The group is most proud of singing for Czech president Vaclav Havel during his visit to Macalester in 1999. A few years before that, they also sang at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts when Blanche was recognized as a leading woman in MN for preserving an ethnic art tradition. The Minnesota Czech Singers perform mainly for town festivals, parades, church festivals, funerals, and polka masses. At Christmas time, they sing religious Czech songs. Typically, a concertina accompanies the group's singing. The group sings waltzes and polkas. When they perform a polka mass, there is also a sax trumpet bass drums.