Global Perspectives on Women Pianists

Pathbreaking study that explores the piano as an instrument of globalism, colonialism and mobility and what this meant for women pianists from around the world. This book surveys women pianists around the world. It focuses on the mid-nineteenth to the late-twentieth centuries, an era that witnessed sustained interest in piano performance against a backdrop of technological and socio-political transformation. The authors range from emerging to established scholars, from the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia. They take diverse approaches to the piano as an instrument of globalism, colonialism, class, and mobility, within women's lives. These include explorations of mapping, networks, and cultural transfer; feminist examinations of archival traces; the implications of distinctive geographies and socio-political conditions; and the links between gender and genre, including contemporary and experimental musics. The volume offers a bold account of global approaches to women in music and encourages innovative ways of rethinking piano culture. Global Perspectives on Women Pianists will be an exciting contribution to the growing landscape of global music history. This book will also contribute to the fields of gender studies, historical musicology, and material history. The editors have curated a volume that achieves a genuine spread of "global" essays (and commendably, one that includes the "West" as simply another part of the globe). JOE DAVIES is a faculty member in the Arts and Humanities Division at New York University Abu Dhabi. He previously held research and teaching positions at Maynooth University, the University of California, Irvine, and the University of Oxford. NATASHA LOGES is Professor of Musicology at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg. She was previously Head of Postgraduate Programmes at the Royal College of Music, London.