2016

The year 2016 was notable particularly for the record number of recordings of Kapralova’s music released by various labels around the globe. The most ambitious project among them was the Czech Radio double-CD of five orchestral works by Kapralova: Military Sinfonietta, Suita rustica, Piano Concerto in D-Minor, Partita, and Concertino for Violin, Clarinet and Orchestra, recorded live in 2015 in Brno and featuring the Brno Philharmonic, under the baton of Olga Pavlu, and the soloists Alice Rajnohova, Lucie Czajkowska, Pavel Wallinger, and Lukas Danhel. The Swedish label Db Productions released Kapralova’s April Preludes as part of their 'Grammis' nominated album Neglected Works for Piano, featuring Bengt Forsberg, a fine pianist best known outside Sweden as Anne Sophie von Otter’s accompanist. Australian ensemble Muses Trio released their debut album The Spirit and the Maiden, featuring Kapralova’s Elegy. Czech Radio released on its digital Radioteka site new studio recordings of Suita rustica, op. 19 and Military Sinfonietta, op. 11, performed by the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Marko Ivanovic. Finally, the Kapralova Society’s digital release on SoundCloud made available Kapralova’s music for piano, violin and piano, violoncello and piano, and the opus 10 songs, featuring Canadian artists Anton Kubalek, Gerard Kantarjian, Coenraad Bloemendal and Dana Campbell, as well as German pianist Axel Gremmelspacher.

The past year also offered a record number of country premieres of Kapralova’s orchestral music, including the Swiss premiere of Kapralova’s orchestral song Sbohem a satecek (orchestra L’anima giusta, conducted by Jessica Horsley and featuring Olga Pavlu as soloist), Northamerican premieres of Military Sinfonietta (University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Kiesler) and Suita rustica (Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra conducted by Toshiyuki Shimada), and the Austrian premiere of Concertino for Violin, Clarinet, and Orchestra (Vienna Concert-Verein conducted by Doron Salomon, with Thomas Alebertus Irnberger and Reinhard Wieser as soloists). There were 7 radio broadcasts featuring Kapralova’s music in 2016, by three national broadcasters: Radio France, BBC, and Czech Radio. The most important among them was Radio France’s four-part series dedicated mostly to Kapralova’s music and broadcast by France Musique during its Le Passage de midi program. Kapralova also made her debut as a television star, appearing in Season 3 of the Amazon produced, award-winning series Mozart in the Jungle as a trailblazer character from the past who has inspired the series heroine, Hailey (Lola Kirke), and her friend Lizzie (Hannah Dunne) to take on new creative challenges. The series even sampled some of Kapralova's music, while its soundtrack, released by Sony in December, featured an orchestra named after Kapralova.

In 2016, Czech Radio made available an orchestral score of Smutny vecer (ed. Timothy Cheek), one of the orchestral songs Kapralova originally envisaged as a cycle of two or possibly three songs (the second was to be Sbohem a satecek; the third might have been an orchestral version of Navzdy). The Kapralova Society published Kapralova's piano miniature Slavnostni fanfara (Festive fanfare) and volume 2 of its anthology of Kapralova’s correspondence (ed. Karla Hartl). Reviews of Kapralova’s music appeared in a variety of periodicals and on various blogs: The Spirit and the Maiden CD was reviewed by Stephanie Eslake for CutCommon and by David Barker for MusicWeb, Bengt Forsberg’s CD Neglected Works for Piano was reviewed by Gramophone (Harriet Smith), Sydsvenskan (Tobias Lund), Dagens Nyheter (Martin Nystrom), MusicWeb International (Richard Kraus), ArkivMusic (Bess Holloway) and Amazon.com (Debra Bibel), and the Prague Spring Festival performance of Kapralova’s songs by the Levicek duo was reviewed by Kristyna Farag in OperaPlus. Hartl’s anthology of Kapralova’s correspondence (volume 1) was reviewed in Hudebni rozhledy (Jindra Bartova), and the published score Tales of a Small Flute in Harmonie (Lukas Vytlacil). Kapralova was also featured or mentioned in the articles published by Societatea Muzicala (Cosmina Cornea), The Wall Street Journal (Norman Lebrecht), San Francisco Chronicle and Columbus Dispatch (Daniel Wiegand), and forbiddenmusic (Michael Haas).

The fourteenth volume of our Kapralova Society Journal featured texts by Maria Norriega Rachwal and Hye-Bin Song, interviews with women conductors Jessica Horsley and Odaline de la Martinez, and a symposium report by Judith Mabary. Rachwal’s article “Feminizing the stage: Early lady orchestras and their maestras” was printed in the spring issue, while Song’s analytical text “Influence, individuality and stylistic evolution in the music of Fanny Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn” was published in the fall issue.

Thanks to worldwide volunteers, our databases of women composers and conductors and other online resources on women in music continue to expand and attract visitors to our website. While the databases are frequently bookmarked by online discussion groups and blogs, many college libraries also link to our journal and the Woman Composer Question bibliography.

We would like to thank the following artists who performed Kapralova’s music in Australia, Austria, Czech Republic, Singapore, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States: Thomas Bandy, Landon Baumgard, Benjamin Berman, Lucie Brotbek, Timothy Cheek, Antonina Chehovska, Konstantza Chernov, Zachary Crowle, Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra, Tomer Eres, Virginia Eskin, Bengt Forsberg, Beatrice Giere, Anne Gross, Nathan Harris, Hermine Haselbock, Samantha Holland, Jessica Horsley, Thomas Albertus Irnberger, Marko Ivanovic, Tuomas Juutilainen, Allyssa Kemp, Kenneth Kiesler, Rina Kim, Bronislava Klablenova, Julia Laird, Chaazi Levicek, Jiri Levicek, Ryan Lustgarten, Giorgio Koukl, Teresa Malichayova, Joshua Marzan, Rafael Gordillo Maza, Jason McDougall, Therese Milanovic, Rikki Morrow-Spitzer, Kara Mulder, Christabel Nunoo, Orbis Trio, Orchester L’anima giusta, Olga Pavlu, Claire Pegram, Jana Piorecka, Christa Powell, Alice Rajnohova, Jim Reilly, Sonya Szabo Reynolds, Doron Salomon, Blair Salter, Toshiyuki Shimada, Jana Tajovska Krajcovicova, Laurie Ann Taylor, Margaret Tigue, University (of Michigan) Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Concert-Verein, Tomas Visek, Reinhard Wieser, and Kristyna Znamenackova.

We also wish to thank our partners, as well as all the others who promoted Kapralova and/or assisted our efforts in promoting women in music in 2016: Anywhere Festival Brisbane, Arizona State University School of Music, ArkivMusic, Atrium Zizkov, Caleb Bailey, David Barker, Jindra Bartova, Irene Bauer, BBC Radio 3, John Biatowas, Debra Bibel, Alexandra Boucher, British Chamber of Commerce Singapore, Peter Bromley, Central and Eastern European London Review, Columbus Dispatch, Consulate General of Bulgaria in New York City, Cosmina Cornea, Susan Coyne, CutCommon, Czech Centre London, Czech Radio (D-Dur), Czech Radio (Radioservis), Czech Radio 3 (Vltava), Czech Radio Publishing House, Dagens Nyheter, dB Productions, Jean-François Denis, Martin Dvorak, EntArteOpera, Stephanie Eslake, Kristyna Farag, forbiddenmusic, Frauenkomponiert, Eugene Gates, Barry Gorman, Gramophone, Harmonie, Peter Herbert, Bess Holloway, Hudebni rozhledy, International Antonin Dvorak Singing Competition, Janacek Academy of Performing Arts, Keene State College, Denisa Kerschova, Elizabeth Koe, Katerina Konopaskova, Konzervator P. J. Vejvanovskeho Kromeriz, Richard Kraus, Marie Kucerova, Jenny Lin, Tobias Lund, Judith Mabary, Philip Mackowiak, MacPhail Center for Music, Odaline de la Martinez, Eva Meitner, Sarah Meredith, Eve Meyer, Jaroslav Mihule, Moravian Master Class Namest nad Oslavou, Moravian Museum of Brno, MusicWeb International, Lenka Nota, Martin Nystrom, OperaPlus, Oxford House Theatre London, Ondrej Pivoda, Prague Spring Festival, ProART, Maria Noriega Rachwal, Radio France, San Francisco Chronicle, Setkani s hudbou Sobeslav, Zoja Seyckova, Simona Sindlarova, Robert Skarda, Nicholas Skorina, Harriet Smith, Societatea Muzicala, Hye-Bin Song, St. Mary’s College, Sydney Fringe Festival, Sydsvenskan, University of Graz, University of Michigan School of Music, Marco del Vaglio, Kamila Valuskova, the Washington State University, Wall Street Journal, David Wiegand, and the Wright State University.