Ms Elizabeth Hardman Warburton

Elizabeth is a final year PhD student studying under Drs Laura Hamer, Marie Thompson, and Manuella Blackburn, supported by the Open-Oxford-Cambridge Doctoral Training Partnership. Her project, 'Confronting canonicity and promoting diversity: gender and contemporary concert programming', explores the barriers to performing women's music, including direct interviews with programmers to create strategies to increase gender diversity in classical music programming in the UK. The thesis is in collaboration with the Donne Foundation, with whom Elizabeth organised a Guinness World Record-achieving event at the Brazilian Embassy and conducted research for their 2024 report exploring the diversity of orchestral programming globally.

Elizabeth is also a mentee of the Women's Musical Leadership Online Network. She has previously studied at King's College London and the University of Leeds, where she studied with the Head of School Excellence Scholarship and received two commendations at graduation.

Recent conference presentations include the F-List 3rd Annual Research Conference and the AHRC Constellations Conference at Cambridge. Elizabeth received the Judges' prize for her poster presentation on barriers to programming women's music at the OU's International Conference. Cohort member of FASS teaching/lecturing scheme 2025-26.

Research Interests

• Gender and queer theory in classical music
• Feminist musicology
• Opera and music for the stage (particularly 19th century and verismo opera, and post-1950s musical theatre)
• Performance practice (particularly vocal performance)
• EDI and policy making in classical music

Other Activity

• Full-lyric operatic soprano
• Marketing / Event Management / Graphic Design