Vitezslava Kaprálová was a Czech composer of the twentieth century known for her chamber music, art songs, and orchestral works. Her style combined impressionist aesthetics and contemporary compositional devices such as polytonality with distinctive melancholic melodies. She was born in 1915, in Brno, and both of her parents were musicians. Her mother Viktorie Uhlířová was a singer, and her father Václav Kaprál was a composer who encouraged his daughter to compose from a very young age. Kaprálová probably received some early musical training from her father, and she began composing when she was nine years old. She attended the Brno Consercatory from 1930 to 1935, where her professors were Zdeněk Chalabala for conducting and Vilém Petrželka for composition. This was followed by studies at the Prague Conservatory with Vítězslav Novák and Václav Talich, and in 1937 she moved to Paris. With support from a French government scholarship, she studied conducting with Charles Münch and composition with Bohuslav Martinů, and she may have also received some instruction from Nadia Boulanger. It was around this time when she composed some of her most mature and best-known works such as her Variations sur le carillon de l'église St-Etienne du Mont, Op. 16, Suita Rustica, Op. 19, and the unfinished Concertino for Violin, Clarinet and Orchestra, Op. 21. She conducted the Czech Philharmonic in 1937, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1938 for a performance of her Military Sinfonietta, Op. 11 at the festival for the International Society for Contemporary Music in London. Kaprálová married writer Jiří Mucha in 1940, but she passed away two months later after being misdiagnosed with tuberculosis. Her life inspired the creation of the Kapralova Society in 1998, which promotes women in the music industry. Her music can be heard on Giorgio Koukl’s Kaprálová: Complete Piano Music, Vítězslava Kaprálová: Waving Farewell; Prélude de Noël; Military Sinfonietta; Sad Evening; etc. conducted by Kenneth Kiesler, and Vítezslava Kaprálová: The Completed Orchestral Works with Alena Hron and the Janácek Philharmonic Orchestra. ~ RJ Lambert, Rovi