Events Events: Inês Thomas Almeida, “Invisible Legacies throughout History: How Women Shaped Music in Portugal and Brazil”

Inês Thomas Almeida holds a PhD in Historical Musicology. Her research aims to foster an understanding of Lusophone musical heritage in which women are not peripheral figures but agents in the creation, preservation, and transformation of music. The lecture will reclaim these invisible legacies, from Arabic-Andalusian female singers in southern Portugal and mixed-race Brazilian prima donnas to 19th-century singing nuns, the first female conductors in Portugal and Brazil, and more.

The role of women in history has often been minimized, forgotten, or intentionally erased, and music is no exception. Recent musicological research, aligned with Women’s and Gender Studies, has increasingly highlighted the essential contributions of women as composers, performers, patrons, educators, and critics. In Portugal and Brazil, women played an important role in consolidating, disseminating, and innovating musical and cultural traditions, even when their legacies were later obscured.

Throughout centuries, far from being passive participants, women actively shaped musical practices in diverse spaces—from courts and convents to salons and public stages—challenging societal constraints while forging networks of cultural transmission.

From Arabic-Andalusian female singers in southern Portugal and mixed-race Brazilian primadonnas to queens shaping 18th-century musical practices, 19th-century singing nuns, the first female conductors in Portugal and Brazil, and the role of women’s magazines as safe spaces where female composers could test their skills with the public—often anonymously—this lecture reclaims these invisible legacies. By shedding light on their contributions, it aims to foster a more accurate understanding of Lusophone musical heritage—one in which women were not peripheral figures, but agents in the creation, preservation, and transformation of music.

Inês Thomas Almeida is a FLAD/Saab Visiting Professor in Portuguese Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell in Spring 2025. She holds a PhD in Historical Musicology from Universidade Nova de Lisboa and is a faculty member in Nova’s College of Social and Human Sciences. She is an integrated researcher at the Institute of Ethnomusicology – Centre for Studies in Music and Dance (INET-md), where she works on her own project, FEMUS 18 – Female Music Practice in 18th Century Portugal: Spaces and Profiles of Women Making Music (2024–2030), funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). She co-coordinates the INET-md Thematic Line Studies on Women, Gender and Sexuality. Previously, she was a postdoctoral researcher at IELT (NOVA FCSH) and has contributed to projects on convent music and early modern literary adaptations.

Prof. Almeida teaches Women Composers: A History of Female Composition from Medieval Ages to the 21st Century at NOVA FCSH and lectures in the PhD in Gender Studies. She is Science Communication Coordinator for COST Action Print Culture and Public Spheres in Central Europe (1500–1800) and has contributed to exhibitions, publications, and public engagement in music. Her research focuses on 18th-century music, travel accounts, women in music, ballad traditions, and transnational cultural networks.