Music Research Seminar: Elizabeth Hardman

Lizzy Hardman (The Open University) will join us to present on ‘The interplay of tokenism and positive discrimination: visibility as a strategy in gender equitable concert programming’

Location: Lecture Theatre 2, School of Music

Visibility in prominent concert series is important in bolstering the position of women composing classical music. This paper will explore the spectrum of visibility, the issues of positive discrimination and tokenism, and how they help and/or hinder efforts to increase the visibility of women composers. I will posit that positive discrimination and tokenism can be two sides of the same visibility coin and that the former has the ability to ‘backslide’ in tokenism, eventually harming those it intends to support. I will conclude that positive discrimination can be used as a tool to publicise the works of women and the importance of intersectionality when creating equality and diversity strategies, and how to avoid tokenistic programming. I will also discuss the necessity for the visibility of women composers from various backgrounds to enrich the musical sound world of ensembles and encourage future generations of women composers.

Speaker bio:

Elizabeth is a final year PhD student studying under Drs Laura Hamer, Marie Thompson, and Manuella Blackburn, supported by the Open-Oxford-Cambridge Doctoral Training Partnership. Her project, 'Confronting canonicity and promoting diversity: gender and contemporary concert programming', explores the barriers to performing women's music, including direct interviews with programmers to create strategies to increase gender diversity in classical music programming in the UK. The thesis is in collaboration with the Donne Foundation, with whom Elizabeth organised a Guinness World Record-achieving event at the Brazilian Embassy and conducted research for their 2024 report exploring the diversity of orchestral programming globally. Elizabeth is also a mentee of the Women's Musical Leadership Online Network. She has previously studied at King's College London and the University of Leeds, where she studied with the Head of School Excellence Scholarship and received two commendations at graduation. Recent conference presentations include the F-List 3rd Annual Research Conference and the AHRC Constellations Conference at Cambridge. Elizabeth also works for the University of Leeds International Concert Series, and as a freelance full-lyric operatic soprano.

This will be a hybrid event. The guest speaker will be present with us in the School of Music, and colleagues and other guests are encouraged to join us there. But if you are unable to do so then please consider joining us via Zoom.

No booking is required. Those wishing to attend online should contact series convenor Dr Ellis Jones (e.n.jones@leeds.ac.uk).