Biography
Lenka Chaloupková is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Sinology, Charles University in Prague, specializing in the cultural history of modern Chinese music and Sino‑European artistic exchange. Her research examines how Chinese and Western musical traditions interacted during the twentieth century, with particular attention to the reception of European art music in Republican China and its role in shaping emerging musicological discourse.
Her doctoral dissertation, Back to Asian Roots? The Work of Claude Debussy in the Context of Chinese Musical Modernization, maps the selective appropriation of Debussy’s musical language by Chinese composers and situates it within the broader formation of Chinese New Music. Beyond music reception studies, she also investigates Cold War cultural contacts between China and Czechoslovakia, focusing on Dana Kalvodová’s structuralist approach to Chinese theatre and its significance for socialist-era cultural translation.
Methodologically, her work combines musical analysis with close reading of historical recordings, scores, diaries, and periodicals. She has published on Xian Xinghai, school songs, Chinese art song, and early Chinese encounters with European music.
Research interests
- Chinese musical modernization
- Reception of Western music in Republican China
- Claude Debussy in China
- Xian Xinghai and early Chinese composers
- School songs and cultural politics
- Sino‑Czechoslovak cultural exchange
- Dana Kalvodová and Chinese theatre