Today is the second anniversary of the publication of The Tenth Muse: How Maria Antonia Advanced the Pastoral Opera. Woo hoo! I never expected to publish my dissertation, much less have it become a #1 bestseller, but that’s what happened on August 28, 2023.
I had embarked on that research because I had found it strange that my music history textbooks only mentioned two women composers: Hildegard von Bingen (12th century) and Clara Schumann (19th century). Surely some women had composed and published music during the intervening centuries? Yes, they had.
When I look back on it, I did this research no only to correct the historical record a bit, but to encourage myself. Although music was always a part of my life—I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t singing—I was discouraged from thinking of myself as a musician. This discouragement happened in subtle ways—being placed in schools without music programs—and in not-so-subtle ways—my mother telling me, “Music is a hobby, not a career,” when I was trying to decide on a college major.
In a way, that discouraging atmosphere just made me fight harder to be heard. Even when the stress of family and career dysfunction made singing well next to impossible, I kept doing it. And now, I sing better than I ever. The freedom and joy in music-making that I had as a child has begun to return. And, like Maria Antonia and many of the other women opera composers I researched, I’ve created my own show, The Power of Pure Imagination. It’s an autobiography through song and spoken word—there’s even some original music in there.
My hope is to do a professional recording within the next year of music by me, Maria Antonia and others. Stay tuned!