‘Scoring Suffrage’
Claudia Tobin has been awarded funding from Calliope Arts to support the development of a research project and lecture-performance in collaboration with the award-winning violinist Ruth Palmer and Il Palmerino Cultural Association, Florence. Claudia and Ruth set out to uncover the musical sisterhood underscoring a network of European women artists, activists, and composers who took inspiration from Florence, including the composer Dame Ethel Smyth (still best known for her ‘March of Women’ anthem); the writer and campaigner Vernon Lee; and suffragette, critic and playwright Constance Smedley.
September 2023 will see the culmination of one strand of the research in a lecture-performance at the International Lyceum Club in Florence. Constance Smedley founded the club in 1908 and it was dedicated to women’s emancipation, internationalism, and peace.
The collaboration is part of a larger project ‘Oltrano and beyond : Donne di Storia e di Arte’ based at Vernon Lee’s former home, Villa Il Palmerino in September-October 2023: https://www.palmerino.org/
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The Cultural Association of Il Palmerino upholds the history of the Villa, set in the hills near Florence, whilst fostering contemporary scholarship and artistic expression.
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