The performing duo of Dr. Marian Wilson Kimber (University of Iowa) and Dr. Natalie Landowski (WIU) return to the CoFAC recital stage to present an evening of musical readings created by women. Through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, women elocutionists
toured North America to great acclaim, and many of them created works for performance. Dr. Wilson Kimber discovered this repertoire while conducting research for her book The Elocutionists: Women, Music, and the Spoken Word (from University of Illinois Press), and began to perform these works with pianist Dr. Natalie Landowski. Their ensemble, Red Vespa, is also active in the creation of new works in this genre.

Marian Wilson Kimber is Professor of Musicology at the University of Iowa. She is the author of numerous articles and book chapters about the composers Felix Mendelssohn and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, and women’s roles in musical life. Wilson Kimber’s book, The Elocutionists: Women, Music, and the Spoken Word (from University of Illinois Press), received the Society for American Music’s H. Earle Johnson Publication Subvention. As part of the duo, Red Vespa, with Natalie Landowski, Wilson Kimber has been performing the compositions she
explores in her book since 2017.

Natalie Landowski is Assistant Professor of Piano at Western Illinois University, where she also serves as the Keyboard Area Coordinator. An active performer, Landowski has presented solo and chamber ensemble performances for the University of Iowa's Piano Sundays and Steinway
Extravaganza series, and at the Coralville Center for the Performing Arts, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, the Upper Bay Philharmonic Society, and Irvine City Hall, as well as other venues.