2004

In 2004, we published a second volume of our journal. The spring issue contained research and texts on Kapralova by Erika Fronkova, Karla Hartl, and Dr. Hanus Weigl. The fall issue printed Kapralova related research by Dr. Erik Entwistle. Beginning in 2005, the focus of the periodical will also include research on other women in music.

The year 2004 was yet another successful year for Kapralova, thanks to a record number of performances and broadcasts of her music worldwide. Several publishing projects also emerged during the year. In May, the Prague-based publishing house Eminent published the 3rd edition of Strange Loves, a novel-autobiography written by Kapralova's writer husband Jiri Mucha about their relationship. In June, the Society initiated an ambitious publishing project - the critical edition of Kapralova's art songs. The initiative is undertaken with Amos Editio, an up and coming publishing house based in Prague; the publication's editor is a member of our Society, Dr. Timothy Cheek of the University of Michigan School of Music. The publication should be available in 2005.

Last year was a record year in terms of the presentation of the composer's music. Kapralova's art songs were performed most often, followed by April Preludes, compositions for violin and piano, and string quartet. Among Kapralova's orchestral compositions, the neo-baroque Partita was her most frequently performed work (the work was also choreographed as a balet and premiered in November by the National Theatre in Brno). The composer's music was also presented at a record number of festivals last year, including the International Festival of Concert Melodrama, Alliance World Festivals for Men and Boys Singing, Concentus Moraviae International Music Festival of Thirteeen Towns, Bezrucova Opava, Bay View Music Festival, and the 2004 Summer Chamber Music Festival (Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society).

The boost in concert activity was complemented by an upsurge in broadcasting Kapralova's works. There was at least one broadcast of the composer's music every month, from January to November, totalling an impressive number of fourteen broadcasts during 2004. Kapralova's music was broadcast by BBC Radio 3, Sveriges Radio P2, Polskie Radio, Radio Amsterdam, Czech Radio 3 and 7, and radio stations in Ann Arbor and Princeton (United States). Czech Radio 3 (Vltava) prepared a 33-minute radio feature on Kapralova that was broadcast in January during the radio program Akademie. Vltava also programmed Kapralova's music throughout the year: in March, it broadcast a radio premiere of her Legend, a piece for violin and piano; and in July and October, it programmed April Preludes, the composer's most popular piano composition. The preludes were also featured in the broadcast of Czech Radio 7 (Praha), in a French language tribute to Kapralova and Martinu - La musique, miroir du printemps et du coeur.

In 2004, Kapralova's music also received a record number of reviews in music journals, magazines, newspapers and e-publications. They included BBC Music Magazine (a review by Jan Smaczny), Diapason (Pierre Barbier), The IAWM Journal (reviews by Alexandra Pierce and Laura Grazyna Kafka), VivaVoce (Ricarda Dietz), Nuova e Nostra (Marco del Vaglio), OPZIJ (Patricia Werner Leanse), Opus Musicum (Jindra Bartova), Harmonie (Veroslav Nemec), The Dvorak Society Newsletter (Gregory Terian), The Capital Times (Michael Muckian), MusicWeb (Colin Clarke), All Music Guide (Allen Schrott), Amazon.com (Genevieve Thiers), and e-Bund. Kapralova's songs (Supraphon) were also reviewed for CD Review (BBC Radio 3) by Andrew McGregor and for Rondo (Czech Radio 3) by Bohuslav Vitek. The compact was generally received with great enthuasiasm as attested by just a few quotes: "One of the best CDs in the genre of 20th century art song repertoire recordings" (IAWM Journal); "Some of the most purely beautiful music I have heard in a long while" (MusicWeb); "Kapralova est pour le lied tchèque ce que Duparc est pour la mélodie française. Une redécouverte capitale" (AbeilleMusique); "Une artiste d'exception..." (Diapason); "There are some real treasures here and for anyone interested in 20th-century Czech music, a fresh perspective on the post-Janacek era" (BBC Music Magazine).

Last year was also successful in terms of published research, articles, and texts concerning the composer. The society's e-journal published an important analytical essay of Dr. Erik Entwistle " 'To je Julietta': Martinu, Kapralova, and Musical Symbolism" and reminiscences of Dr. Hanus Weigl "Rejoicing in the Memories of Vitezslava Kapralova." Furthermore, it reprinted texts "Last Concertino" by Erika Fronkova (first published in Czech Music Quarterly) and "Vitezslava Kapralova: A Life Chronology, Part I" by Karla Hartl (kapralova.org). Opus Musicum published an article by Michaela Vejvarova entitled "Posledni orchestralni skladba Vitezslavy Kapralove," and Instinkt printed a text of Barbora Osvaldova "Vyjimecna skladatelka: Vitezslava Kapralova." Other texts mentioning Kapralova included an article of Dr. Katerina Mayrova entitled "Z archivu Moravskeho zemskeho muzea. Korespondence Bohuslava Martinu," published in Harmonie, and Diana Ambache's article "Men only?," written for Independent.

Kapralova's music was a topic of lectures and lecture-recitals presented by Dr. Timothy Cheek (Bay View Music Festival and the 2004 Summer Chamber Music Festival), Dr. Vera Sustikova (International Festival of Concert Melodrama), and Dr. Laura Kobayashi (The West Virginia University Women and Creativity Conference). Kapralova's life and work were also the subject of a commemorative exhibit entitled Zena mezi peti linkami (Woman and Stave), co-presented at the end of the year by Kapralova's estate and Knihovna Jiriho Mahena in Brno, in collaboration with ZUS Vitezslavy Kapralove. Josef Kapral of Kapralova's estate provided for the exhibit various documents from the estate collection. It is worth noting that the exhibition opening included a world premiere of Kapralova's miniature Festive Fanfare, arranged for brass quintet by Vladimir Werner.

The list of Kapralova related projects and initiatives would not be complete without mentioning those inspired by her music. Last year, Kapralova's music inspired Jaroslav Sveceny's Composition for solo violin on a motif of V.Kapralova and Renate Moran's painting "Malerai zur Musik von Vitezslava Kapralova".

women in music, czech music in exile and czech music 2004

Our online resources on women in music continue to attract visitors to our website and receive positive feedback. Our Women in Music Internet Project has been now endorsed by a number of university libraries and women's studies across North America. We also continue to design and host pages of selected women composers and conductors: last year we designed an online presentation for Mary Woodmansee Green, a conductor from the United States.

Another online initiative of our society - Czech Music in Exile - promotes music of sixteen Czech composers who left their native Czechoslovakia during the last century to escape either fascist or communist regimes. The project is designed to preserve and protect the memory of these gifted composers. Last year, as part of this project, we helped to support and promote a unique recording of little known music by Bohuslav Martinu. The compact disc features a number of world premieres of his compositions for piano, some of them inspired by Kapralova.

Last year we also participated in Czech Music 2004, a special initiative of the Czech Ministry of Culture to mark the occasion of admission of the Czech Republic to the European Union by celebrating anniversaries of many personalities of Czech musical culture, past and present, through presentation activities. Our contribution to the initiative was an online presentation celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kapralova's friend, Czech composer Theodor Schaefer [1904-1968]. This web project was prepared in collaboration with Dr. Natasa Honzikova, the composer's niece. We also advocated for more women to be included in the final selection of honoured artists, for the project committee was proposing to honour 67 artists of which only 3 (!) were women and none of them a woman composer (the list included 50 composers, all men). In response to our advocacy, the committee added one woman composer to the list (from the several we proposed): Slava Vorlova.

acknowledgements

We wish to thank the following artists who promoted the composer's music in Canada, Czech Republic, Great Britain, Slovakia, Switzerland, and the United States during 2004 (in alphabetical order): Frank Almond, Igor Ardasev, Thomas Bandy, Lada Bartosova, Lucie Bartova, Petra Besa-Pospisilova, The Boychoir of Ann Arbor, Stanislav Cajka, Josef Cecava, Timothy Cheek, Petr Chromcak, Sadie Danforth Brightman, Dianna Dumpel, Carola Emrich-Fisher, Iva Fleischhansova, Susan Keith Gray, Risa Renae Harman, Kimberly Haynes, Caroline Helton, Katerina Honova, Janacek Philharmonic Ostrava, Jan Jirasky, Milan Kanak, Kapralova Quartet, Nela Klimova, Laura Kobayashi, Jakub Kozak, Katerina Kraftova, Martin Kupka, Hana Maciuchova, Jacqueline Metcalf, Vit Otahal, Jill Pearon, Jana Pelikanova, Zdenek Prokes, Arielle Rosenberg, Anthony Ross, Stepan Ruda, Miroslav Sekera, Kirk Severtson, Kira Slovacek, Rachal Solomon, Ivan Straus, Thomas Strode, Jaroslav Sveceny, Jeffrey Sykes, Mariko Terashi, Karel Valenta, and Janna Vinson.

We would also like to thank our partners, friends, and all the others who contributed to our cause in 2004: ABC, AbeilleMusique, All Music Guide, Diana Ambache, Chris Anderson, Ann Arbor Alive, Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, Ballet Ensemble of the National Theatre in Brno, Pierre Barbier, Rob Barnett, Jindra Bartova, Bay View Music Festival, BBC Music Magazine, BBC Radio 3, Mark Beudert, The Bezrucova Opava Festival, Frantisek Bilek, Cary Boyce, Gerry Brennan, Ales Brezina, Susanne Brunetzky, Kristine H. Burns, Simon Camartin, The Capital Times, Helena Cerna, Timothy Cheek, Petr Chromcak, Colin Clarke, The Contentus Moraviae International Festival of Thirteen Towns, Susan Cooper, Crane School of Music, Czech Radio 3 (Vltava), Czech Radio 7 (Praha), Lidmila Dankova, Thomas Delehanty, Patrick F. Devine, Diapason, Lenka Dohnalova, the Duchoslav family, Dvorak Society Newsletter, Marketa Dvorakova, Olga Dvorakova, e-Bund, Edmonton Chamber Music Society, Øyvind Eik, Erik Entwistle, Frau und Musik, Erika Fronkova, Kevin Gassaway, Eugene Gates, Ellen Grolman, HAMU, Petr Hanousek, Harmonie, Paul Hartl, Deborah Hayes, Leda Hatrick, Dagmar Havlova, Natasa Honzikova, Alan Houtchens, IAWM Journal, Independent, Instinkt, International Alliance for Women in Music, International Festival of Concert Melodrama, Marketa Jahodova, Alena Jelenkova, Olga Jezkova, Vicky de Jonghe, Laura Kafka, Alison Kamm, Josef Kapral, Sabine Kemna, Knihovna Jiriho Mahena v Brne, Martin Kratochvil, Antonin Kubalek, Longy School of Music, Andrea Lupi, Jiri Macek, Bohuslav Martinu Society, Frantisek Matejka, Katerina Mayrova, Andrew McGregor, Fred McGregor, Christiane Meininger, Mestska knihovna v Praze, Eve R. Meyer, Renate Moran, Jarmila Mrackova, Michael Muckian, MusicWeb, Piñeiro Nagy, Veroslav Nemec, Claudine Novikow, Nuova e Nostra, Vera Ociskova, Mary Ogle, Opus Musicum, OPZIJ, Barbora Osvaldova, Diane Paige, Alexandra Pierce, Polskie Radio, Lukas Ptak, Radio Amsterdam, Vaclav Richter, Marvin Rosen, Katerina Ruzickova, Allen Schrott, Zoja Seyckova, The Slovak National Museum & Museum of Music, Jan Smaczny, Harriet Smith, Kass Sunderji, Vera Sustikova, Sveriges Radio P2, Jiri Teml, Gregory Terian, Genevieve Thiers, Marcel Tschumi, The United States Embassy in Slovakia, University of Michigan School of Music, Marco del Vaglio, Jana Vandelikova, Michaela Vejvarova, Bohuslav Vitek, VivaVoce, Vydavatelstvi a nakladatelstvi Ceskeho rozhlasu, vydavatelstvi Eminent, Hanus Weigl, Patricia Werner Leanse, Vladimir Werner, West Virginia University, WPRB Princeton, ZUS Bechyne, and ZUS Vitezslavy Kapralove.