audio welcome and overview of this website

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). 

We have curated a hands-on, accessible exhibition at the Pratt Music Library throughout the weekend, featuring archival texts, images, and tools related to blind musicians and music education of the blind — including a modern-day replica of a composing board invented for Paradis, built in collaboration with the Fimbel Maker and Innovation Lab. 

The symposium's musical events include two recitals of music by and about Paradis, featuring the Fitz Gibbon - McCullough Duo (soprano and fortepiano), and Sherezade Panthaki (soprano), Allison Monroe (violin), and Jiayan Sun (fortepiano). Our grand finale Schulkonzert is a reconstruction of one of Paradis's Vienna school concerts from the 1810s, featuring the Mount Holyoke Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Singers, and selected faculty, students, alums, and friends performing music by (and programmed by) Paradis — including the modern-day world premiere of a recently rediscovered Paradis cantata — interspersed with excerpts from glowing accounts of these concerts in the German press.

The symposium will be held both in person and online. Registration is free. All events and materials will be preserved and shared on this website (with audio descriptions) following the symposium as an accessible, open learning resource.

Conference organizers:

Adeline Mueller (Mount Holyoke College)

Christopher Parton (Princeton University)

Annette Richards (Cornell University)

Questions? Email us at paradissymposium@gmail.com