2017

The year 2017 was yet another eventful year, notable for a number of important projects that included a Naxos recording of the composer’s complete music for piano solo, an orchestral score of Suita rustica, published by Czech Radio, a collective monograph on Kapralova, published by Chronos Verlag in Switzerland, and new volumes of the composer’s correspondence, a project of the Kapralova Society. The Naxos disc was particularly well received, winning Diapason d’or in May, and one of its tracks was included in the “best of” collection of piano music released by Naxos in the Grand Piano series.

The past year also offered a number of country premieres of Kapralova’s orchestral and chamber music, including the Swiss premieres of Suita rustica (Berner Kammerorchester with Olga Pavlu) and the composer’s piano and violin pieces (Duo Skylla), the Singapore and Irish premieres of Kapralova’s April Preludes (Samantha Ege; Lance Coburn), and the Australian premiere of Sparks from Ashes (Stacey Alleaume). There were also 13 radio broadcasts featuring Kapralova’s music in 2017, including three national broadcasters: Czech Radio, Radio France (France Musique) and Deutschlandfunk.

In 2017, Naxos (Grand Piano) released Kapralova's complete music for piano (performed by Giorgio Koukl); Czech Radio made available an orchestral score of Suita rustica (eds. Lucie Slivonova and Robert Skarda, foreword Judith Mabary); Chronos Verlag published in Zürich a collection of essays, Vitezslava Kapralova: Zeitbilder, Lebensbilder, Klangbilder, (ed. Christine Fischer), based on papers presented at the ForumMusikDiversität conference in Basel in 2015; and the Kapralova Society released two new volumes of Kapralova’s collected correspondence (ed. Karla Hartl). Kapralova was also the subject of articles published by Ritmo (Juan Carlos Moreno) and Opus musicum (Karla Hartl). Reviews of Kapralova’s recorded music appeared in a great variety of periodicals and on various blogs. The Spirit and the Maiden CD (released the previous year) was reviewed in the Journal of the IAWM (Kimberly Green), while the Naxos disc was reviewed in BBC Music Magazine (John Allison), Diapason (Patrick Szersnovicz), American Record Guide (Jack Sullivan), La Scena Musicale (Norman Lebrecht), Open Letters Monthly (Norman Lebrecht), Kapralova Society Journal (Lynn Rene Bayley), Dagens Nyheter (Johanna Paulsson), Dvorak Society of Great Britain Newsletter (Peter Herbert), Hospodarske noviny (Boris Klepal), MusicWeb (Rob Barnett and Steve Arloff), Musical Toronto (Norman Lebrecht), Critica Classica (Marco del Vaglio), Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review (Grego Applegate Edwards), artmusiclounge (Lynn Rene Bayley), amazon.com (Hexameron), amazon.fr (Denis Urval), and various online blogs (Norman Lebrecht). In addition, Hartl’s anthology of Kapralova’s correspondence (volumes 1–3) was favourably reviewed in Hudebni veda (Jaroslav Mihule).

The fifteenth volume of our Kapralova Society Journal featured articles of Zachary Milliman, Michael Haas and Erin Hackel, interviews with French German conductor Eva Meitner and Czech composer Lenka Nota, and reviews by Erik Entwistle and Lynn Rene Bayley. Milliman’s article “Victoria for Mrs. President! Modern Women at the Opera” and Haas’s text “Female Composers: Degenerate, Deviant or Deliberately Downgraded” was printed in the spring issue, while Hackel’s feature “Yvette Guilbert: La Diseuse” was published in the fall issue.

In 2017, our online resources on women in music continued to attract visitors to our website. While the database of women composers has been frequently bookmarked by online discussion groups and blogs, and has assisted school projects, college libraries link to our Woman Composer Question bibliography and Kapralova Society Journal; the latter has been officially listed as an important open source journal by ProQuest, Salisbury University Library, and others.

We would like to thank the following artists who performed Kapralova’s music in Australia, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States: Rieko Aizawa, Stacey Alleaume, Landon Baumgard, Berner Kammerorchester, Mariah Boucher, Lieve Buzard, Timothy Cheek, Diego Chenna, Lance Coburn, Nicholas Davis, Duo Skylla, Edsbergs Kammarorkester, Samantha Ege, Matthew Erhart, Virginia Eskin, Ursula Fortin, Chuck Foster, Maureen Galea, Annie Gill, Ilana Goldstein, Tanya Hanson, Simona Houda Saturova, Matthew Hunt, Emma Johansson, Martin Kasik, Ema Katrovas, Ivan Konev, Giorgio Koukl, Julia Laird, Luke Larson, Olga Machonova Pavlu, Dorottya Marosvari, Jesse Mills, Celine Moinet, Andrea Mottlova, Amy Petrongelli, Alice Stepankova, Andrew Stewart, Margaret Tigue, and Jan Vojtek.

We also wish to thank our partners and all the others who helped us promote Kapralova and our online resources in 2017: 12. Internationales Festival der Kammermusik, John Allison, Amazon, American Record Guide, Grego Applegate Edwards, Steve Arloff, artmusiclounge, Rob Barnett, Lynn Rene Bayley, BBC Music Magazine, Elisabeth Blair, Katerina Bodnarova, Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia, Chronos Verlag, Critica Classica, Czech Radio (Ostrava), Czech Radio (Vltava), Czech Radio Publishing House, Dagens Nyheter, Dalton School of Music, David Denton, Nicolas Derny, Deutschlandfunk, Diapason, Dvorak Society Newsletter, Erik Entwistle, Christine Fischer, ForumMusikDiversität, Friends of Prague Spring, Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review, Eugene Gates, Goethe Institute Dublin, Grammisgalan 2017, Grand 101 FM Radio, Kimberly Green, Guildford International Music Festival, Michael Haas, Erin Hackel, Peter Herbert, Hexameron, Hospodarske noviny, Hotel Rosslipost, Hudebni veda, imusiken.se, Indiana University, International Festival of Slavic Music 2017, International Opera and Music Festival Janacek, Janacek Academy of Performing Arts, Journal of the IAWM, Kaleidoscope Dublin, Boris Klepal, La Scena Musicale, Norman Lebrecht, Library @ Esplanade, Daniel Lienhard, Listening to Ladies, Judith Mabary, McCall Music Society, Eva Meitner, Eve Meyer, Jaroslav Mihule, Zachary Milliman, Moravian Museum Brno, Juan Carlos Moreno, Mozart in the Jungle, Musical Toronto, MusMag Italia, MusicWeb International, National Gallery of Ireland, Naxos (Grand Piano), Northwestern University Bienen School of Music, Lenka Nota, Open Letters Monthly, Opera Centre Sydney, operaplus.cz, OSA, Johanna Paulsson, Yvonne Petitpierre, Tom Quick, Radio France (France Musique), Alice Rajnohova, Ritmo, Salisbury University (USA), Christophe Sirodeau, Lucie Slivonova, Robert Skarda, Milos Stedron, Jack Sullivan, Thomas Svatos, Patrick Szersnovicz, The Bryn Mawr School, Oliver Triendl, Todd Twining, Terezin Music Foundation, University of Michigan School of Music, University of Montana, University of Surrey, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, Denis Urval, Marco del Vaglio, Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy, and Zunfthaus zur Waag.