Pavel Haas Study Day, the first international conference focusing specifically on the life and work of the Czech composer Pavel Haas, was held on 30 January at the Cardiff University. Its purpose was to stimulate critical discussion about Haas’s work, which, owing to rather inauspicious politial development, was until 1990s pushed to the verge of oblivion.
The speakers of the all-day conference included a renowned director, scenographer and Czech music specialist Prof Pamela Howard from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Prof Michael Beckerman (New York University) or a Czech composer and musicologist Aleš Březina (Bohuslav Martinů Institute). Nine scholars altogether made their speech within the three thematic sessions called Czech Avant-Garde Music, Arts and Culture, The Charlatan and Terezín, Loss and Trauma. The conference was followed by the performance of Haas’s String Quartet No. 2 ‘From the Monkey Mountains’ (1925) and String Quartet No. 3 (1937-38) played by the Brno-based Graffe Quartet (Štěpán Graffe, Lukáš Bednařík – violin, Lukáš Cybulski – viola, Michal Hreňo – cello).
30 January 2016, Cardiff University, UK
Pavel Haas Study Day