Colloque « Reframing the Gaze. Maria Theresia Paradis, Blind Musicians, and Musical Culture before and after Braille », Mount Holyoke College et en ligne, 22-23 novembre 2024.

« Maria Theresia Paradis (1759-1824) was a celebrated Viennese prodigy and piano virtuosa whose story of blindness, quack treatments under Franz Mesmer, and fame as a touring musician has been retold in novels, films, and plays. But she was also a well-known composer, a beloved piano teacher, and an influential figure in the development of educational systems and adaptive technologies for the blind in Europe. At once multiply marginalized and uniquely privileged among her peers, she offers important perspectives on vulnerable virtuosity, histories of disability and music education, cure fantasy, the politics of the gaze, and late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century musical culture, performance, and listening practice.

In honor of Paradis’s bicentenary, our interdisciplinary symposium features two keynote speakers, Selina Mills and Stefan Sunandan Honisch, and a dozen international scholars discussing various aspects of Paradis’ life, works, worlds, and impact. We will also speak with artists responsible for fictional adaptations of Paradis’s biography, such as the film Licht (dir. Barbara Albert, 2017) and the chamber opera The Paradis Files (Graeae Theatre Company, 2021). »

Pour plus de détails : cliquez ici.