Composer, guitarist, lutist and pedagogue, born in Wessely an der March (South Moravia, today Veselí nad Moravou/Czech Republic), died in Zlín (South Moravia/Czech Republic).
He studied guitar with Vojtech Tukac (1897-2000) at the conservatory of Bratislava. Afterwards he taught guitar in the folk school of art in Uherské Hradiste, but also in Bratislava at the Liduska and the conservatory of Veselí nad Moravou. But Alois Mensík was not only a guitarist, lute player and music teacher. His compositions for guitar and lute are mainly met by artists abroad. In France he released two guitar duets (Éditions Combre) and in Germany he made 6 arrangements for guitar ensembles and chamber music with guitar playing (Joachim-Trekel-Musikverlag: 5, Chanterelle Verlag: 1). However, they are also known to the pupils of the Primary Art Schools in the Czech Republic.
The musician was also part of several ensembles with which he was very successful. He was one of the teachers at the Pro Arte Musica of the Bratislava Conservatory, with whom he performed in Russia, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Poland and Sweden. He founded and conducted the professional guitar ensemble Moravia Consort Guitar. He got to the lute only in the late eighties. He learned her play at the Musik Akademie der Stadt Basel in Switzerland with the prominent American lute player Hopkinson Smith. It is this encounter that Mensík sees as his greatest life experience. “He lent me his instrument back then. He rode in an old heavy car. I was in the hands of the best lutist and the illusion of the world. It was an inexplicable thing, but it gave me such a strange sense of security. When one knows that his professor has the capacity to go to the whole world to consult him, I got to the stage with a lute in a completely different state of mind, “he recalled meeting with an important character in his professional life. His son Max Mensík, who lives in Slovakia, is composer, violinist, pianist and singer. (Rainer Stelle)