Interiors: The musical world of Henry Handel Richardson

Research Background In 2022 Lemoh was selected for the highly competitive Creative Fellowship Award by the National Library of Australia: a research residency at the National Library of Australia. This was awarded to research one of Australia’s most iconic figures, musician and writer Henry Handel Richardson, the first woman to win the Australian Literature Society’s Gold Medal in 1929. Originally aspiring to be a composer, she became one of Australia's greatest writers. She composed throughout her life, during years of study and work in Germany and England, but almost all her compositions remained unperformed and undiscovered. Richardson assumed a male pseudonym to achieve success in the literary world. Research Contribution The research investigated archival material, interrogating the relationship between her literary and musical outputs. This culminated in a live staged public performance lecture and recital, with Associate professor Narelle Yeo as soprano/partial narrator. The performance premiered many of Richardson’s compositions for voice and piano and contextualised new insights into this significant cultural figure in a research findings presentation at the National Library of Australia. Research Significance This event was significant in its presentation of unearthed new material, presented in context with a new perspective on the intersection of music and literature in Richardson’s creative output. The performance featured several original stage music compositions by Lemoh.The performance at the National Library of Australia was attended by the Friends of the Library and public audience members. It was widely promoted and live streamed/recorded for the library’s archives. The National Library of Australia’s decision to retain the recording of this performance and make it accessible in their archives attests to the cultural significance of this new contribution to Australian music and research into a major female Australian writer.