Ann Ford

Ann Ford was a woman who intended to make a living from her art. A friend of the greatest artists of the time, she spent time with the great musicians Carl Friedrich Abel and Johann Christian Bach, as well as the painter Thomas Gainsborough and the writer Laurence Sterne. Attracted to unusual and unconventional instruments, she loved to sing while accompanying herself on musical glasses, the viola da gamba, or the English guitar. Her concerts, which had a sweet hint of scandal, drew crowds. But fame was often brief, and others would quickly take her place by adopting her style. Ann Ford paved the way for women musicians in England and left her mark on her era with her resolutely free style.