Lincoln, Neb.-The University of Nebraska Foundation and the UNL School of Music will host the Rokahr Family Archive Dedication and Reception, Thursday, May 2nd at 3:30 p.m., Westbrook Music Building, 11th & R Streets on the UNL campus. This event is by invitation only.

UNL alum, Jack Rokahr chose the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as the home for the Rokahr Family Archive; a vast and eclectic collection of opera, operetta, musical, and zarzuela scores which date from 1765 to the present. Numbered at over 4700 volumes and valued at nearly half a million dollars, the Rokahr Family Archive is considered the largest private archive of its kind in the United States.

University of Nebraska President L. Dennis Smith, and Chancellor Harvey Perlman, University of President of the Nebraska Foundation Terry L. Fairfield, Dean of the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts Giacomo M. Oliva, Dean of University Libraries Joan Giesecke, and Interim Director of the School of Music Robert A. Fought, will welcome Jack Rokahr, members of the Rokahr family and invited guests in room 130 of the Westbrook Music Building. A reception with refreshments and tour of the Rokahr Library will follow the dedication.


Born and raised in Lincoln, Rokahr is part of five generations of Rokahrs involved with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His mother, Dorothy Pfarr attended the School of Music in 1918. His grandfather, Ernest Rokahr, was a contractor who built Andrews Hall, Chi Omega Sorority House, Carrie Bell Raymond Hall, among others. His sister, Mary, in 1938 was one of the first women to enroll and graduate from the College of Architecture.

Rokahr says he was "introduced to good music at an early age" by his mother and was "hooked on opera" at an early age. He listened to Metropolitan Opera broadcasts on the radio. In 1938, at the age of 16, he purchased his first opera score, Georges Bizet's Carmen, for $2.50 from a music store in Lincoln. The archive further expanded during his duty in Europe in World War II, where he was able to acquire scores and send them back to the United States. As his desire for more knowledge about opera grew, so did his archive. As the years went by, he acquired the largest private library in the United States of opera vocal scores.

The archive filled "eight rooms of my house including the bathrooms and hallways," said Rokahr, who now lives in Los Angeles.

One of the joys of being on campus to help install the archive in Westbrook Music Builidng has been his opportunity to see his entire archive in one place.

"I'm having a ball," he said. "It's the first time I've seen it all together in sequence."

His family's connection to UNL made the School of Music's Library the logical place for his archive to be placed.

"I hope the archive will excite students' imaginations to begin or continue their journey through the world of opera," Rokahr said. "This archive is the result of 64 years of pleasure and expanding one's operatic horizons."

The archive will continue to expand.

"It is a growing archive," Rokahr said. "it's just that it will be in Lincoln instead of Los Angeles."