Virtuosa Society

Season 2 of the Virtuosa Society Podcast kicks off with a tale close to heart for host Katie Harman as she unfolds the largely unknown story of the Miss America Pageant that almost wasn’t. Weaving interviews with her fellow competition sisters and fascinating historical references, Katie unfurls the events surrounding 9/11 that led to an unprecedented vote by the 51 young women competing for the t...

Host Katie Harman takes a trip down memory lane to revisit some of her favorite moments in each of Season 1’s seven episodes. She reveals the common thread of collaboration within each story and the “moments of convergence” that are the apex of each story - when one talented woman meets another talented woman and spontaneous combustion happens in the form of something impactful, innovative, imagin...

Episode 7 is a ghost tale! The mystery of a name that was only known to paper… and a woman who wrote hundreds of Tin Pan Alley tunes in the shadow of a pseudonym. Host Katie Harman unfolds the story of composer Irene Higginbotham, and how she - along with three other legendary women of Tin Pan Alley - helped shape American popular music in the 1930s-1950s. The episode also features a portion of Ka...

Episode 6 is the intentionally hidden story of the two most important collaborators in the life of celebrated writer Jane Austen: her older sister Cassandra and Anne Sharp, a governess and Jane’s only fellow writer friend. Host Katie Harman unfolds the story of the influence of both women in Jane’s life and writing, as well as the shocking background of why their names have been buried in historic...

Episode 5 is a special mid-season “live broadcast” recorded in partnership with In A Landscape . Recorded for a live audience in the lush center of Moore Park, in Klamath Falls, Oregon, this episode unveils the story of pioneering, prolific photographer Maud Baldwin. Host Katie Harman recounts how Maud embodied the Oregon State Motto: “She Flies with Her Own Wings” and how she continues to inspire...

Episode 4 uncovers the hidden story of the first all-female film and its British amateur filmmaking club roots. Sally Sallies Forth is a 26-minute comedy romp about a young woman who becomes a maid for a day at a garden tea party. Written, directed and produced by 26-year-old Frances Lascot alongside 9 other fellow female film enthusiasts, the film was shot over two blustery weekends in October 19...

In Episode 3 of Virtuosa Society’s inaugural season, host Katie Harman recounts world-renowned singer Marian Anderson’s groundbreaking moments, including a little-know collaboration with fellow virtuosa Florence Price on a signature piece that closed her historic Easter Sunday concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1939.  In connection, Katie sits down with Ginette DePreist, wife of the l...

In Episode 2, host Katie Harman tells the story of when avant-garde artist and Parisian fashion designer Sonia Delaunay collaborated with Hollywood’s silent screen star Gloria Swanson on a one-of-a-kind coat. A coat that now travels the world as an icon at the intersection of art and fashion. Was their collaboration possibly the first fashion collab? Katie makes her case for why she thinks it dese...

In Episode 1 of Virtuosa Society’s inaugural season, host Katie Harman weaves together two different tales of collaboration between royal circles. First, the little known behind-the-scenes story of what is widely considered one of the first operas ever written: La Liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina (“The Liberation of Roger from the Island of Alcina”). The twist? It was deliberately meant...

Welcome to the Virtuosa Society podcast, where I'll be diving into remarkable secret and hidden-in-plain sight stories of collaborations that were born from various shared struggles between female creatives. We're going to unlock the memory banks of women to discover the experiences that resonate most with womanhood – beyond the missing pages in history books – to the nuanced truths and realities...