Alice Coomaraswamy
| Alice Coomaraswamy | |
|---|---|
Ratan Devi with a tanpura in 1917 in Manhattan
|
|
| Born |
Alice Ethel Richardson October 1889 Sheffield, England |
| Died | July 15, 1958 (aged 68) Boston, Massachusetts |
| Nationality | British |
| Other names | Ratan Devi |
| Occupation | Musician |
| Spouse(s) |
Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Francis Bitter |
Alice Ethel Richardson Coomaraswamy (born Richardson) aka Alice Coomara (1889 – July 15, 1958) worked under the stage name of Ratan Devī. She recorded Indian music and was a performer of Hindu songs and poems, and went on concert tours in Britain and America. Martin Clayton identifies Alice as one of the significant women overlooked with regard to music in the British Empire.
Alice Ethel Richardson was born in October 1889 in Sheffield, England, to George Richardson and Sarah Faulkner.
In 1907 Alice visited her friend Philip Mairet, who was part of the same group of artists as art historian Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy and his wife, the hand weaver and dyer Ethel Coomaraswamy. The following year, she began an affair with Ananda. Ethel had not delivered an heir, and her husband wanted a child. He made no secret of his affair and eventually proposed that he should take a second partner. Ethel was aghast at this suggestion and vacated the marital home.
Alice married Coomaraswamy in 1913 in St Pancras, London. They would in time have two children, Narada Coomaraswamy and Rohini Coomaraswamy. Together they went to India and stayed on a houseboat in Srinagar in Kashmir. Commaraswamy studied Rajput painting whilst Alice studied Indian music with Abdul Rahim of Kapurthala. When they returned to England, Alice performed Indian song under the stage name Ratan Devi. She was successful and toured around Britain where she would sing after an introductory talk by her husband.
In 1913 she published Thirty Songs from the Punjab and Kashmir, which was co-authored with her husband. The book gave the musical notation for thirty songs and included an introduction by Bengal polymath Rabindranath Tagore, who was very gracious about Alice's singing. Apart from the press, she also received good reviews from the composer Percy Grainger, the playwright George Bernard Shaw and the poet W. B. Yeats.
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