Dr. David Vondráček

Researcher at the Department of Musicology with specialization in the history of operetta.

David Vondráček studied, among other subjects, musicology (Dr. phil., 2021) and European ethnology (B.A., 2020) at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich and at Charles University in Prague. His dissertation on the music of Jaroslav Ježek, completed in 2018 under the supervision of Hartmut Schick, was published by Allitera Munich in 2021. At LMU, Vondráček taught a wide range of music history classes. He has also worked in the audio archive of Bavarian Radio (BR) and for the publishing house De Gruyter (on Deutsches Theaterlexikon online, among others). Since 2020, he has been a member of the Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, where he received support through the program PPLZ (Podpora perspektivních lidských zdrojů – Support for Prospective Human Resources) for research on Czech operetta history (2023–2025). Vondráček is a contributing author to A History of Music in the Czech Lands, edited by Martin Nedbal, Kelly St Pierre, and Hana Vlhová-Wörner (Cambridge University Press, expected in 2025).

His research interests include Czech music since the second half of the nineteenth century; modernist tendencies in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe; music in multi-ethnic societies, nationalism, cultural transfer; music theatre including melodrama and operetta; popular music and jazz; the Viennese classics and Schubert; the history of piano music; solitary figures in music history (such as Emánuel Moór and Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis); and music physiology.

Research outputs (selection):

David Vondráček, Jazz as Sound for the Stage: The Liberated Theater and its Progeny, in: Martin Nedbal – Kelly St Pierre – Hana Vlhová-Wörner (ed.), A History of Music in the Czech Lands, Cambridge: University Press [expected publication date 2025].

David Vondráček‚ ‚Sedlák Jakub‘ Oskara Nedbala a otázka lidové opery, in: Kateřina Piorecká et al. (ed.): Gesto a skutečnost. Umění v meziválečném Československu 1. Obyčejný život, Praha: Academia 2024, pp. 111–120.

David Vondráček, Jaroslav Ježek zwischen Avantgarde und Jazz (Münchner Veröffentlichungen zur Musikgeschichte, 81), München: Allitera 2021.

David Vondráček (ed.), The East, the West, and the In-Between in Music (Münchner Veröffentlichungen zur Musikgeschichte, Sonderband 2), München: Allitera 2021.

David Vondráček, Der tschechische Blick auf Johann Stamitz, in: Sarah-Denise Fabian et al. (ed.), Johann Stamitz und die europäische Musikermigration im 18. Jahrhundert (Schriften zur Südwestdeutschen Hofmusik, 4), Heidelberg: University Press 2021, pp. 45–69.

David Vondráček, Musik und Lebenswelt bei Gideon Klein. Mit einigen Anmerkungen zu seinen Chorsätzen, in: Albrecht Dümling (ed.), Torso eines Lebens. Der Komponist und Pianist Gideon Klein (1919–1945) (Verdrängte Musik, 23), Neumünster: von Bockel 2020, pp. 59–77.

David Vondráček, Aus Böhmen und Mähren in die Welt. Musik(theater), Mobilität und Migration in der Moderne, in: Burcu Dogramaci – Berenika Szymanski-Düll – Wolfgang Rathert (ed.), Leave, Left, Left. Migrationsphänomene in den Künsten, Berlin: Neofelis 2020, pp. 43–62.

David Vondráček, Die Kafka Band & Co.: Zur popkulturellen Aneignung Kafkas, in: Steffen Höhne – Alice Stašková (ed.), Franz Kafka und die Musik (Intellektuelles Prag im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, 12), Köln: Böhlau 2018, pp. 245–259.

Current projects:

Studies in Czech operetta, ca. 1900–1938 (PPLZ)

Music Between Political Pressure and Autonomy (Strategy AV21 Anatomy of European Society)