This project explores women piano teachers in Helsinki and Tallinn from 1861 to 1924. Although hundreds of influential women piano pedagogues worked in these multilingual towns, they have remained in the margins of historiography. By analysing the teachers' social status and the discrimination they faced, this study challenges male-oriented canons in music history. Instead of focusing on bilateral cultural relations between Finland and Estonia, the project considers the two towns in the larger geocultural contexts of the Gulf of Finland area and the Russian Empire. Thus, the project deconstructs nationalist myths in music historiography. Furthermore, the project creates a new intersectional approach for the study of women's work in music based on historical sociology, feminist musicology, and new imperial histories. Not only will this theoretical initiative be of use for historians – it can also be applied to the study of (gender) inequalities in musical life today.

2022

2025