The Peaceful Crystallographer
A Minerva Scientifica Project
Short Extracts from The Peaceful Crystallographer…and other songs live performance
Thursday 15th October, Bloomsbury Festival 2026 CONWAY HALL
‘The Peaceful Crystallographer – and other Songs’ was our first live performance for this project, a joyful celebration of Dame Kathleen Lonsdale (1903–1971) told through an eclectic mix of music by women composers. There were contemporary writers like Judith Weir, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Frances M Lynch and some associated with the ethical movement of Conway Hall, Eliza Flower (1803 – 1846) and Emily Josephine Troup (1853-1913). Others were contemporaries of Kathleen Lonsdale – Lisa Lehmann (1862 – 1918), Ethel Smyth (1858 – 1944), Maud Santley (1873 – 1952), Elizabeth Maconchy DBE (1907 – 1994), Shena Fraser (1910 – 1993).
The performance featured our Artistic Director, Frances M Lynch who was thrilled to be joined by UC8 and Clerkenwell Community Choir. n addition to the singers we have some special guests for our post-show discussion, including science historian Dr Patricia Fara and Zoë Waller, Professor of Drug Discovery, Pharma & Bio Chemistry at University College London.
We are currently planning a tour…funding permitting!
The Peaceful Crystallographer is a major interdisciplinary community engagement and performance project celebrating the legacy of scientist and pacifist Dame Kathleen Lonsdale (1903–71) and the parallel lives and work of overlooked historic women composers.
Through community and school outreach, co-creation workshops, public performances, new commissions, a range of digital outputs and partnerships between Electric Voice Theatre, Conway Hall, Bloomsbury Festival, UCL and Leeds University among others, this is an immersive programme bringing music and science into conversation with one another. Our aim is to take this project forward and into the lives of hundreds of new listeners and creators.
Dame Kathleen Lonsdale (1903–1971)
Image with the kind permission of Stephen Lonsdale
provided by The Royal Society
Kathleen Lonsdale started life in Ireland in 1901 and at 5 years old she became an immigrant in England with her mother and her brothers and sisters. They lived in Essex, Seven Kings, and went to the local elementary school, now Downshall Primary School. The pupils and staff at the school were delighted to discover that such an eminent scientist had grown up in their school, living for almost 20 years just around the corner. This is where our project continues – you can see in the video that we have all had fun working with Year 6 – all 90 of them! They made music, learnt a song and found out about the important things Lonsdale had discovered from a real life professor from UCL – Professor Zoë Waller. We hope to return in 2027 to continue celebrating the best role model they could have – Kathleen Lonsdale.
The project began on International Women’s Day 2026 with a film made in the Conway Hall library with scientists from UCL, science historian, Dr Patricia Fara and artist Bryony Marshall talking about their interactions with the legacy of Kathleen Lonsdale.
