Vítězslava Kaprálová was a Czech composer and conductor whose short life left a lasting mark on Czech and European music of the 20th century. She was born on 24 January 1915 in Brno into a musical family – her father was the composer Václav Kaprál, her mother was a teacher and singer. From an early age she showed exceptional musical talent, and at the age of nine she surprised her parents when she composed her first song. Despite her background in a musical family, her father disapproved of her studying music composition as a woman. Together with her mother, however,she pushed throughthe study of music.
Vítězslava was admitted to the Brno and then Prague Conservatoire. In September 1930 she became the first woman to study music composition and conducting in Czechoslovakia. Her unprecedented success even attracted the attention of the media.A few years later, she was conducting her most successful composition, the Military Symphony, before President Edvard Beneš.
However, she first had to convince the master musicians of the Czech Philharmonic to work with her. The orchestra had never before been conducted by a woman, let alone one barely twenty years old. The music, however, was spectacular, as was the performance of a twenty-year-old female conductor in front of a hundred-headed orchestra.