Podcast appearances and mentions of berta joncus

In this episode of Sounding Freedom and Liberation we speak to Dr Berta Joncus and learn about Berta's own personal experience of freedom and liberation through discovery of her own voice as a performer, and how this led to her research career. Berta tells us about eighteenth-century performer-celebrity Kitty Clive, who worked against cultural constraints to exercise musical and social freedom, and recovered her career by turning the “trash-talk” used against her to her own benefit. Learn also about the unknown repertoire of abolition song, a form of activism circulating in polite society of the eighteenth century—particularly among women—that appropriated the narratives of enslaved people and set them musically so as to engage sympathy and ultimately work towards the end of the slave trade. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share Sounding Freedom and Liberation with your community. Biography Dr Berta Joncus is a musicologist, and Research Project Lead at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Her research focuses in large part on Early Music repertories, including 18-century European opera and vocal music. Berta is an impassioned advocate for lost and marginalised voices, and most recently has been awarded a 24-month Arts and Humanities Research Council Curiosity Grant to lead an interdisciplinary network looking at abolition song and its legacies in Britain between 1787 and 1830. The network works in partnership with the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the British Library, and the Handel Hendrix House. Berta's writing Kitty Clive, or The Fair Songster, Berta Joncus (Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer 2019): https://boydellandbrewer.com/book/kitty-clive-or-the-fair-songster-9781783273461/ Links to accompany the episode Abolition Song and its Legacies (ASail): https://www.gsmd.ac.uk/abolition-songs-and-its-legacies-asail Project concerts at Handel Hendrix House, London Concert 1, 9th January 2025: Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDKCLSZZPYE Full programme: https://pure.gsmd.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/51740035/9.1.25_concert_prog_corrected.pdf Concert 2, 19th May 2025: Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9y0T3uTL3E Full programme: https://pure.gsmd.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/52014526/19.5.2025_ASaiL_Programme.pdf Concert 3, 8th September 2025: https://youtu.be/9-rqoYJOyhA Full Programme: https://pure.gsmd.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/52014527/ASaiL_8_Sept_2025_Prog.pdf Podcast hosts Dr Férdia Stone-Davis: www.ferdiastonedavis.com Dr Charissa Granger: https://sta.uwi.edu/fhe/dlcc/dr-charissa-granger Podcast acknowledgements The Sounding Freedom and Liberation music was composed by Samuel J. Wilson. Website: https://www.samueljwilson.com/profile The Sounding Freedom and Liberation logo was designed by Pavlína Kašparová. Website: https://www.creativenun.com/bio The Podcast was recorded at the Media Lab, the West Hub, Cambridge, and was edited by Mike Chivers

As part of Radio 3's programming around LGBTQ+ Pride, Hannah French is joined by musicologists Berta Joncus and Lola Salem to explore the life and career of Jean-Baptiste Lully, who shot to fame at the court of King Louis XIV. Lully was an Italian violinist, guitarist and dancer, who caught the eye of the young King when they danced together in a ballet in 1653. Before long, he became an indispensable part of the Paris and Versailles music scenes, entertaining the royal family for the next thirty years and earning a very good salary from doing so. Lully was bisexual, and for many years his relationships with both men and women were never questioned – there was an implicit acceptance to same-sex desires among the upper echelons of 17th Century Parisian society. But in 1683, Queen Marie-Thérèse died, and the king's secret marriage to Madame de Maintenon changed everything. Devotion came to the fore at court, the king's enthusiasm for opera dissipated, he became increasingly annoyed by what he now considered Lully's dissolute lifestyle, and everything began to unravel…

Christopher Cook in conversation with: - Christian Curnyn (conductor) - Hanna-Liisa Kirchin (singer) - Christopher Hopkins (repetiteur) - Berta Joncus (speaker) Find out more about ENO's pre-performance talks on our website: www.eno.org/talks

Berta Joncus recommends a recording of Handel's Alcina from among available versions.

Berta Joncus with a personal recommendation from the many recordings of Mozart’s opera Singspiel 'Die Entführung aus dem Serail', the work that prompted the infamous (and now contested) complaint that there were “too many notes”!

Berta Joncus, musicologist and Handel expert joins Michael Walling, revival director for a pre-show discussion. Performance by mezzo-soprano Sarah Champion accompanied by Martin Pacey.

Lucie Skeaping talks to musicologist Berta Joncus about the one of the 18th Century's colourful characters, the soprano Kitty Clive. Clive was born in London in the early 18th century, and rose to become London's top singer and comic actress, and a celebrity in her day. Berta Joncus is currently writing a book about Kitty Clive, and how she fascinated audiences for decades. The programme includes music she made famous, including Arne's 'Rule Britannia', and also music written for her by Handel. First broadcast in January 2012.