2003

society

In 2003, the society's membership resided in eighteen countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, South Africa, Spain and the United States. Last year, the society was invited to join the International Alliance for Women in Music, an important international platform for composers, musicians, musicologists, and music organizations interested in celebrating and fostering the achievements of women in music. Through its members, the alliance is connected to a number of universities around the world. The alliance publishes a journal dedicated to women in music and maintains comprehensive online resources on this subject.

Since October 2003 the society has its own periodical - The Kapralova Society Newsletter. This publication, dedicated mainly to Kapralova research and information, is available on our website.

Last year was an important year for promotion of Kapralova's music, as a record number of Kapralova compositions was released on compact disc and published in print.

The most significant among these projects was the release of Kapralova's art songs by Supraphon in November. The initiative was made possible thanks to the dedicated efforts of Dr. Timothy Cheek and the financial assistance of the University of Michigan and the Kapralova Society. Another great news was the much anticipated publishing of Kapralova's Concertino, op. 21 and her last composition, Ritournelle, op. 25, by Baerenreiter, at the end of the year. Publishing of Kapralova's last opus, arguably her best chamber work, was initiated and financially assisted by our society. Kapralova's childhood compositions, published by the up and coming Prague publisher Amos Editio, concluded the list of last year's contributions to the Kapralova Catalogue. The project was initiated and financially supported by Spolecnost Vitezslavy Kapralove.

Other important events in 2003 included world premieres of two Kapralova compositions: her remarkable art song Leden (January) for voice and quintet and her charming orchestral miniature Prélude de Noël. Leden was premiered by Caroline Helton and Michigan Chamber Players at the University of Michigan School of Music on January 19, 2003. Prélude de Noël received its first concert hall performance (since its radio premiere by Radio France Orchestra at Christmas 1939) from the West Texas A&M University Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Douglas Morrison, on November 23, 2003. Other important performances included the New York premiere of Apple from the Lap, op.10, performed by Carola Emrich and Jonathan Kelly on April 21, and the Nagoya premiere of Kapralova's String Quartet, op. 8, performed by Kapralova Quartet on June 10. Kapralova's art songs were performed most often last year, followed by her string quartet, April Preludes, and three piano and violin pieces.

Kapralova's music was broadcast last year by Czech Radio 3 (Vltava), Czech Radio 7, public radio networks in Chicago and Princeton, and the University of Michigan Television. Czech Radio in particular was very active in promoting the composer. Vltava prepared two documentaries dedicated to Kapralova: the first - a 45-minute documentary on Kapralova's life and work - was broadcast in August during the program Musica Moderna (Nasi v zahranici - 3/5); the second - a 59-minute documentary based on a script by Jan Hlavac and produced by Helena Cerna - was broadcast in November, during the radio documentary series Z jejich zivota. Pohledy do pracoven hudebnich skladatelu. In addition to the above documentaries, Vltava also programmed Kapralova's music during the year: in March, it broadcast Kapralova's melodrama To Karel Capek; in August, a live performance of her string quartet; and, in September, her Suite en miniature for chamber orchestra. Czech Radio 7 prepared a 10-minute biographical sketch in Spanish, with excerpts from the composer's music. The composer's music was also promoted at the International Festival of Film on Art in Montreal that presented (on March 16 and 20) the Kapralova documentary Last Concertino, produced in 2001 by Czech Television (Brno Studio).

Reviews of Kapralova's music were published in New York Concert Review (Harris Goldsmith), the Dvorak Society Newsletter (Gregory Terian), Sedicinoni (Marco del Vaglio), MusicWeb (Rob Barnett), Talent (Petr Hanousek), and Czech Music No.6 (Matej Kratochvil). IAWM Journal published Karla Hartl's texts In Search of a Voice: The Story of Vitezslava Kapralova and Vitezslava Kapralova: An Annotated Catalogue of Her Works. Both texts were re-printed in the first issue of The Kapralova Society Newsletter. Zpravy Spolecnosti Bohuslava Martinu printed an article by Kapralova's biographer Jiri Macek Predcasne odesly talent ceske hudby. Other texts on Kapralova included a Kapralova biography in Dirigentinnen im 20. Jahrhundert, written by German conductor Elke Mascha Blankenburg and published in Hamburg by Europäische Verlagsanstalt, and a chapter on Kapralova in the collection of literary portraits of 60 key women in Czech history - Ceske zeny -, edited by Alena Wagnerova and published by the Czech publishing house FRAGMENT.

The composer's art songs were topics of several lectures presented by Timothy Cheek at the University of Illinois in June and at the occasion of Czech and Slovak Voice competition organized by the University of Wisconsin in November. Kapralova was also included in the syllabus of the course Antropologicke aspekty hudby offered by the Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology at the West Bohemian University in Pilsen.

Kapralova's life and music inspired Daniela Kosinova's Omnia vincit amor, a 3-movement composition for lower voice and string quartet, while Kapralova's poem Chaloupka was an inspiration for a song composed by the talented eight-year-old Katerina Kraftova. The list of projects and initiatives inspired by or dedicated to Kapralova would not be final without mentioning Kapralova's monument, an initiative of Josef Kapral, that was erected last year in Kapralova's beloved summer retreat Tri Studne.

Our online resources on Kapralova and on women in music continue to expand (Kapralova information is now available in 6 languages: English, Czech, French, German, Spanish, and Italian) and attract visitors, primarily musicologists, musicians, and students. Last year we created individual pages for conductor Susan Campos from Costa Rica and members of Hudbaby - a collective of young composers from the Czech Republic: Katerina Ruzickova, Barbara Skrlova, Lenka Foltynova, and Marketa Dvorakova. We also financially supported the group's first compact disc, released in June to critical acclaim by LOTOS, a Czech label based in Prague.

Another online initiative of our society - Czech Music in Exile - promotes music of sixteen Czech composers who left their native Czechoslovakia during last century to escape either fascist or communist regimes. The project is designed to preserve and protect the memory of these gifted composers, some of whom remain little known in their native country. Last year we created a page dedicated to one of them, Czech-American composer Jeronym Zajicek.

We wish to thank the following artists who promoted the composer's music in Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, and the United States during 2003 (in alphabetical order): Dana Buresova, Kevin Bylsma, Claudio Canal, Magda Caslavova, Timothy Cheek, Anthony Elliot, Carola Emrich, Erik Entwistle, Iva Fleischhansova, Viviane Goergen, Caroline Helton, Herold Quartet, Daniela Hlinkova, Andrew Jennings, Kapralova Quartet, Jonathan Kelly, Vera Kohoutkova, Jacqueline Metcalf, Douglas Morrison, Cornelia Mühlenhoff, Jill L. Pearon, Amy Porter, Stephen Shipps, Kira Slovacek, Ladislava Vondrackova, and West Texas A&M University Symphony Orchestra.

We would also like to thank all the others who promoted Kapralova and / or assisted our work in 2003: Amos Editio, Rob Barnett, Ingeborg Baumgartner, Elke Mascha Blankenburg, Teresa Blaszke, Helena Cerna, Chicago Radio Network, Ci-Femmes Luxembourg, Liane Curtis, Czech Radio 3 (Vltava), Czech Radio 7 (Praha), Czech Radio Publishing House, Editio Baerenreiter, Emilia Esserova, Andrea Fajkusova, FRAGMENT, Harris Goldsmith, Petr Hanousek, Hartl Sala Bell LLP, Klaus Heiliger, Jan Hlavac, Hochschule für Musik Köln, Ludmila and Josef Holanovi, IAWM Journal, International Festival of Film on Art in Montreal, Alena Jelenkova, Bohuslava Jelinkova, Gabriele Knapp, Matej Kratochvil, Marie Kucerova, Alena Lukasova, Bohuslav Martinu Society of Zlin, Eve R. Meyer, Veroslav Nemec, Pavel Novotny, Anna Ohlidalova, Opus Musicum, Nabila Ramdani, Marvin Rosen, Jaroslav Rybar, Supraphon Records, Vera Sustikova, University of Michigan Office of the Vice President for Research, University of Michigan School of Music, University of Michigan TV Channel 22, Alena Vesela, Petr Vit, Ludmila Vrkocova, WPRB Princeton, Jiri Zahradka, Jeronym Zajicek, Eva Zamecnikova, and Petr Zizka.

Finally, we would like to acknowledge the following members of the Kapralova Society who helped us carry out our mandate last year (in alphabetical order): Jindra Bartova, Timothy Cheek, Lidmila Dankova, Erik Entwistle, Iva Fleischhansova, Eugene Gates, Paul Hartl, Ludmila Hatrick, Constanze Holze, Josef Kapral, Jiri Macek, Frantisek Matejka, Fred McGregor, Kass Sunderji, Gregory Terian, Marco del Vaglio, and Hanus Weigl.

Prepared by Karla Hartl, Chair, The Kapralova Society. Toronto, March 2004.