The Musica non grata project launches a new series "Women in Music" dedicated to the work of women composers in the first half of the 20th century. The stars of the concert will be soprano Kateřina Kněžíková, the winner of the 2022 BBC Music Magazine Awards, Brazilian pianist Clélia Iruzun and winner of the Arturo Toscanini Competition, conductor Victoria Zhadko.
Julie Reisserová, Vítězslava Kaprálová, Elizabeth Maconchy and Dora Pejačević: four women composers united by their desire to compose, but each writing a very different life story. Julie Reisserová as the well-educated wife of the Czech diplomat Jan Reisser, Vítězslava Kaprálová as a composer and conductor whose talent was extinguished when she was only twenty-five years old, Dora Pejačević – a well-traveled European whose life was deeply influenced by her friendship with Sidonie Nádherná, and Elizabeth Maconchy, who was a composer and conductor and in the 1930s she celebrated her first compositional successes in Prague and, despite the words of the Dean of the Royal Academy of Music in London, "you get married and you never write another note", went on to become the Dame-Comandeur of the Order of the British Empire. At the time of their composition, their works were performed with success throughout Europe. Today, many of them lie quietly in archives. The time has come to repay the debt to this great music, which contains the elements of Bohemian songfulness, French charm, great romantic scores and the mysticism of the music of the ancient Celts.
