Vítězslava Kaprálová

Vítězslava Kaprálová (; 24 January 1915 – 16 June 1940) was a Czech composer and conductor of 20th-century classical music. Life and career Vítězslava Kaprálová was born in Brno, Moravia, Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic), a daughter of composer Václav Kaprál and singer Vítězslava Kaprálová (née Viktorie Uhlířová). From 1930 to 1935 she studied composition with Vilém Petrželka and conducting with Zdeněk Chalabala at the Brno Conservatory. She continued her musical education with Vítězslav Novák (1935–37) and Václav Talich (1935–36) in Prague and with Bohuslav Martinů, Charles Munch (1937–39) and, according to some unverified accounts, with Nadia Boulanger (1940) in Paris. In 1937 she conducted the Czech Philharmonic and a year later the BBC Orchestra in her composition Military Sinfonietta. Her husband was the Czech writer Jiří Mucha, whom she married two months before she died. Despite her untimely death, which may have been caused by typhoid fever, in Montpellier, France at the age of 25, Kaprálová created an impressive body of work. Her music was admired by Rafael Kubelík, who premiered her orchestral song Waving Farewell and also conducted her other orchestral works. Amo