苹果淫院

The Doctoral Colloquium is open to all.

Doctoral Colloquium:听Marta Beszterda, PhD candidate - Musicology

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Title:听"Female Exceptionalism, Lineage, and Labor: The Role of Women in the Career of Gra偶yna Bacewicz (1909-1969)"

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Biography: Marta Beszterda is a PhD candidate in Musicology and Feminist Studies at 苹果淫院. Her doctoral dissertation explores the relationship between music labor, gender, identity, and agency under state socialism in postwar Poland. The project is supported by Fonds de recherche du Qu茅bec 鈥� Soci茅t茅 et culture (FRQSC). Marta presented her work at many international conferences, including the annual meetings of the American Musicological Society, the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, and the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies. In 2021, she received the second prize in the yearly competition organized by the Soci茅t茅 Qu茅b茅coise de Recherche en Musique (SQRM) for her conference paper 鈥淲omen in Polish Postwar Musical Culture: The Case of Zofia Lissa.鈥� In 2022, Marta co-organized the first international conference 鈥淲omen and Gender in Art Music of the Eastern Bloc鈥� with the support of the Royal Musical Association (UK).

Abstract: Over fifty years after her death, the legacy of Polish-Lithuanian composer and violinist Gra偶yna Bacewicz (1909-1969) has been primarily addressed within the framework of female exceptionalism. Yet, to date, the fact that she was an isolated case of success as a Polish woman composer throughout 1950s and 1960s has not led to a critical examination of the politics of gender in the postwar Polish compositional scene. This paper complicates existing interpretations of Bacewicz鈥檚 career, shedding light on the interconnectedness between the composer and the women in her life: her teacher Nadia Boulanger, mother Maria Modli艅ska, and sister and a de facto administrative assistant Wanda Bacewicz. First, I trace overlaps between Boulanger鈥檚 and Bacewicz鈥檚 practices of self-fashioning as a hardworking and exceptional woman. Next, I consider the Warsaw positivism movement provenience of Modli艅ska鈥檚 values around work and womanhood as influential in shaping Bacewicz鈥檚 extraordinary dedication to work and her perseverance in pursuing a composing career as a woman. Finally, I turn towards the importance of emotional, domestic, and administrative support of Bacewicz鈥檚 mother and sister throughout the composer鈥檚 career, revealing the ubiquity of women鈥檚 hidden work in music history. Here, I follow Samantha Ege鈥檚 work on female relationships and support networks as factors that have a tangible effect on the growth of a woman composer鈥檚 career. Drawing on feminist approaches by Ege, Rachel Lumsden, Kimberly Francis, and Ellie Hisama, this paper is a case study on women and gender in musical modernism, interwoven with Polish mid-century debates around nation, music, and gender.