News

Inês Thomas Almeida starts work as a researcher on her project FEMUS 18: Spaces and Profiles of Women Making Music in 18^th Century Portugal (2023.09324.CEECIND, funded by FCT for 2024-2030, under the 6^th edition of the Individual Scientific Employment Stimulus Competition.

 

This project seeks to uncover where and how women engaged with music in 18^th century Portugal, analyzing their distribution across social classes, technical skills, education, visibility, and repertoire. The core objective is to identify and characterize the spaces where female musicianship typically occurred, and to explore the relationship between music and the women who performed it. The research focuses on five primary spaces: convents and places of devotion, public and court theaters, the court (aristocratic milieu), domestic space, and outdoor locations (such as streets and markets). Through this typology, it aims to map these environments, highlight the repertoires associated with each, and examine how societal and gender expectations shaped women’s musical opportunities. FEMUS 18 also investigates the social portrayal of these women, their own agency and narratives of music-making, and the financial and administrative dynamics of their musical practices.