Paula Maust: Elizabeth Turner’s 1756 Lessons for Harpsichord

Harpsichordist Paula Maust will perform selections from Elizabeth Turner’s 1756 Lessons for Harpsichord, one of the earliest published collections of music by an Englishwoman. Be part of one of the first audiences to hear these pieces in the 21st century!

When English composer and soprano Elizabeth Turner died in 1756, The London Evening Post wrote that her “extraordinary Genius and Abilities in Musick, make her justly lamented by all Lovers of Harmony.” More than 350 people, including the famed composer George Frideric Handel, subscribed to Turner’s final published book of music in 1756. Even more impressive is that Turner’s works continued to be published in magazines for decades after her death, which was highly unusual at the time. Despite her professional accomplishments, Turner’s works have fallen completely into obscurity—they have not been recorded, and they have rarely (if ever!) been performed in the twenty-first century. This concert features selections from Turner’s 1756 Six Lessons for Harpsichord, one of the earliest published collections of music by an Englishwoman.

Paula Maust is a performer, scholar, and educator dedicated to fusing research and creative practice to amplify underrepresented voices and advocate for social change. She is the creator of Expanding the Music Theory Canon, an open-source collection of music theory examples by women and/or people of color. A print anthology based on the project is under contract with SUNY Press, and she has published articles in Women and Music and the Journal of the International Alliance for Women in Music. Maust is also an Early Modern Area Editor for Grove Music Online’s substantial gender and sexuality revision project. As a harpsichordist and organist, Maust has been praised for combining “great power with masterful subtlety” (DC Metro Theater Arts) and as a “refined and elegant performer” (Boston Musical Intelligencer). As the co-director of Musica Spira, she curates provocative lecture-concerts connecting baroque music to contemporary social issues focused on women. Maust performs extensively as a continuo player with numerous ensembles in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. region, including the Washington Bach Consort, the Folger Consort, and Third Practice. She is an assistant professor of music theory at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. Prior to her appointment at Peabody, she taught music theory and keyboard skills at UMBC from 2016 to 2021.