Jennifer King, piano

Happy to be sharing this co-written show once again this summer at a variety of venues. Suzanne Campbell and I were honoured to receive an PEI Museum and Heritage Recognition Award in March this year for The Bessie Carruthers Study Club show for our work of “profound cultural significance.” It’s also fun! Who would have thought that a fun reunion in 2018 between friends (Pirate Jenny Productions) in Charlottetown, who first met in their early 20’s, would have prompted writing a fringe show for the 2019 Island Fringe Festival … and we are still going folks! After last year’s kind offer by the Souris Showhall to extend the show, have use of their theatre for a week and perform two shows, we are so happy for Ethel and Bessie to have another summer suffragette reunion. This time in Nova Scotia and back in Bessie’s home province of Prince Edward Island.

Tickets $25 at the door.

It's August 1919, and local Women's Institute activist, Miss Bessie Carruthers of Kent Street in Charlottetown, has a very special guest for her weekly Study Club gathering: British musician, composer and renowned suffragette, Miss Ethel Smyth. While this is a fictional event, the characters are based on actual women. Bessie Carruthers played an important role in persuading political leaders of the era to grant women the right to vote on PEI.
Produced by local company Pirate Jenny Productions, The Bessie Carruthers Study Club stars Suzanne Campbell as the titular suffragette with Jennifer King as English composer Ethel Smyth. Mezzo-soprano Suzanne Campbell teaches singing to students of all ages, appears as a frequent soloist around the Island, and sings as a member of the award-winning women's vocal ensemble, Sirens, who recently won Choral Recording of the Year at the 2023 ECMAs. Halifax based Jennifer King is a pianist, educator, host of Cecilia Concerts Sensory Accessible Concert series at Halifax's Central Library and a recording artist. Her latest recording, O Mistress Moon: Canadian Edition was the recipient of the 2023 ECMA Classical Recording of the Year. This play performance also won PEI's Heritage Recognition Award for 2024. " a playfully thoughtful and amusing look back at women's earlier struggles, made more appealing by the Campbell/King duo's fine singing and King's formidable piano skills. Their slate of period tunes includes several audience sing-along numbers, making the show more immersive and fun." - Sean McQuaid, The Buzz

Classical Second Sundays at St. Luke's (2024 Season): Concerts will be held on the second Sunday of every month at 4:00 PM.

Jennifer will be perming recent, newly commissioned Canadian works and past nocturnal gems for solo piano including works by Claude Debussy, Frederic Chopin, Ottorino Respighi, Mel Bonis, Peter A. Togni, John Plant and Dame Ethel Smyth and more.