Migrant Female Musicians and their Fight for Social Rights

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to examine the social action of women composers, often obliged to migrate, for long or short periods, in search of greater freedom and affirmation of their musical talent. The history of yesterday and today features numerous women musicians, composers and performers, active in the production of music, in social and political life, who often had and have to travel and migrate to assert themselves. Going on tour has always been part of the life of the artist – but for women it was not easy to travel freely and at will, on their own besides. Until the nineteenth century, such a thing was almost always strictly forbidden. Sometimes women composers and performers left the countries in which they resided for personal reasons, driven not only by the “compulsion” to change country because in their own it was impossible to choose the pathway they wished to follow.