Female artists in and beyond Prague
One of the Musica non grata project’s major themes is superb female artists who lived and worked in Prague and other cities during the first Czechoslovak Republic, who included Julie Reisserová, Vítězslava Kaprálová, Sláva Vorlová, Marie Drdová (Konstantin Constans) or Lena Stein-Schneider. Research also pays attention to the women’s rights movement that had gained momentum by the early 1900s, and its activists, one of whom, Františka Plamínková, was murdered by the Nazis in 1942.
Sabine Meine / Kai Hinrich Müller It's a Man's World?
In 2024, with the support of the Musica non grata project, a collection of lectures held in 2022 at the Cologne University of Music and Dance was published under the title It's a Man's World? Experts in music and cultural studies explored the topic of female artists and their roles in urban agglomerations, presenting European cities as places where women fully engaged in artistic activities. The book is available in German, also as an eBook.
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Karla Hartl Kauza Kaprálová v dobové korespondenci a dokumentech
2024 Supplemented Edition of the book Kauza Kaprálová v dobové korespondenci a dokumentech by Karla Hartl is the story of the posthumous repatriation of Czech composer Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915–1940), as recorded in contemporary correspondence and documents. It traces the progress from the first steps taken in 1945 by several compatriots in Montpellier and the Czechoslovak embassy in Paris to save Kaprálová's remains, up to the funeral ceremony of placing the urn with the composer's ashes in 1949 in Brno. The correspondence and archives published for the first time in this book not only provide an interesting reflection of the period in which the story took place but also offer new information on the still unresolved cause of Vítězslava Kaprálová's death. The book is available for free in PDF in Czech.
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profile of Vítězslava Kaprálová on the Musica non grata website
Jean-Paul Montaigner Julie Reisserová (1888-1938): Czech Composer and Feminist
Julie Reisserová, a prominent figure of the First Czechoslovak Republic and the wife of diplomat Jan Reisser, was not only a successful composer but also an active pioneer of the women's movement. The book by the French musicologist Jean-Paul Montaigner, to be published in October 2024, focuses on her artistic activities, examines the reception of her six surviving compositions, explores Reisserová's musical language, and reviews her thoughts on the status of women composers in the interwar period. The book is published in English in the series Elements in Women in Music by Cambridge University Press.
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profile of Julie Reisserová on the Musica non grata website
Essays
Karla Hartl: The centenary of Vítězslava Kaprálová
