When the Music Stops & Marek Kozák

In connection with Prague’s cultural life in the 1920s, its symbolic significance is not to be overlooked. It reflects the hope for a Europe freed from wars and petty national disputes. Under the sign of tolerance for different opinions and assimilation of foreign influences, something lasting developed here that must be protected from oblivion.

The violent rule of Nazism dealt a fatal blow to this multicultural environment and plunged artists into ruin, exile, and oblivion. This literary and musical evening follows the footsteps of important writers and composers of that period, connecting them through texts and music. The young Prague composer Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915–1940) died during the evacuation from the Nazi occupiers in southern France as a result of health complications; the German Jewish composers Erwin Schulhoff (1894–1942) and Viktor Ullmann (1898–1944)
became victims of Nazi terror in the camps at Würzburg and Auschwitz.

Marek Kozák: piano
Marek Mikulášek: spoken word
Zdeněk Hazdra: moderator