Joanna joined RBC in September 2023, having previously worked at the University of Oxford, the University of Nottingham, and King鈥檚 College London. Joanna鈥檚 research centres on nineteenth- and twentieth-century British music, particularly musical and cultural histories of minority groups.
She has published widely on British modernism, cultural politics, and increasingly on British music and religion. Her first monograph, Alan Bush, Modern Music and the Cold War: The Cultural Left in Britain and the Communist Bloc was published by Cambridge University Press in 2017. This was based on a decade of research into the musical culture of British communism and its relationship to wider British and communist politics and culture.
More recently, Joanna has been engaged in studying digital methods of understanding composer鈥檚 compositional processes and disseminating that knowledge to wider audiences. She pursued this in several projects at Oxford University, including the AHRC-funded Delius, Modernism, and the Sound of Place (2015鈥�16), Digital Delius (2017鈥�18), The Dream of Gerontius: Curating Catholic Music Digitally (2019鈥�21) and Diversity and the British String Quartet (2020).
Through these activities Joanna created the Delius Catalogue of Works, which won the British Library Labs Research Award in 2018. She has also curated and written content on Delius and Elgar for the British Library鈥檚 flagship digital music resource Discovering Music, and collaborated with the British Library, the National Trust, and the US National Institute for Newman Studies (NINS) on a project digitising and interpreting the original manuscript of Elgar鈥檚 The Dream of Gerontius. Following a Visiting Fellowship at NINS, she is now embarking on a second monograph project entitled Elgar and the Catholic Imagination.
Joanna has broad experience of teaching nineteenth- and twentieth-century music, as well as supervising research students. She currently teaches a contextual specialism on Music and Communism.
- Music and communism
- Musical modernism
- British music, especially Elgar, Delius, Britten, Tippett, Alan Bush
- Music and religion
- Digital musicology
- Music curation and heritage
- DPhil in Music (2005-9), University of Oxford
- MSt in Musicology (Distinction) (2004-5), University of Oxford
- BA (Hons) in Music (First Class) (2001-4), University of Oxford
- American Musicological Society
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Joanna teaches on the following modules:
- Contextual Studies Specialisms (Music and Communism)
- Contextual Studies: Performance Traditions
- Concepts in Musicology (MA)
- Career Development (MA)
- Historical Performance Practice (MA)
- Dissertation (MA)
- Preparation for Research (MA)
Joanna welcomes enquiries from prospective research students with interests relevant to her expertise.
Monograph:
- Alan Bush, Modern Music, and the Cold War: The Cultural Left in Britain and the Communist Bloc, Music since 1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
Peer-reviewed articles:
- 鈥楳usic, Archives, and Colonial Encounter in the Cold War: A Case Study from British Guiana鈥�, Postcolonial Studies (forthcoming, 2023).
- 鈥楶ublishing Musicology using Multimedia Digital Libraries: Creating Interactive Articles through a Framework for Linked Data and MEI鈥�, (with David Lewis, David M. Weigl, Kevin R. Page), DLfM 18: Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Digital Libraries for Musicology (ACM: New York, 2018), 21-5.
- 鈥楤lack, White and Red: Communism and Anti-colonialism in Alan Bush鈥檚 The Sugar Reapers鈥�, in Robert Adlington (ed.), Red Strains: Music and Communism Outside the Communist Bloc, Proceedings of the British Academy 185 (Oxford: British Academy/Oxford University Press, 2013), 193-212.
- 鈥楳odernism, Politics and Individuality in 1930s Britain: the Case of Alan Bush鈥�, Music & Letters 90/3 (August 2009), 432-452.
Chapters in edited volumes and reviews:
- 鈥楾he Composer鈥檚 Guild and the Promotion of New Music鈥� in Justin Vickers and Lucy Walker (eds.), Elizabeth Maconchy in Context (Cambridge, forthcoming).
- 鈥楻eligion鈥� in Paul Watt and Christopher Wiley (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Musical Biography and Life-Writing (Oxford, forthcoming).
- 鈥楥ommunism, Socialism, and Pacifism in British Politics鈥� in Justin Vickers and Vicki Stroeher (eds.), Benjamin Britten in Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), 351-8.
- 'Trouble down t鈥檖it: Marxist Politics, Industrial Stereotypes and Northern Sources in Alan Bush鈥檚 Opera, Men of Blackmoor (1954)鈥� (John Lowerson, with Joanna Bullivant) in Rachel Cowgill, Dave Russell and Derek Scott (eds.), Music and Ideas of North (Routledge, forthcoming).
- '"Practical Jokes:" Britten and Auden's Our Hunting Fathers Revisited' in Kate Kennedy (ed.), Literary Britten: Words and Music in Benjamin Britten鈥檚 Vocal Works (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2018), 206-22.
- 鈥楾he Socialist Composer in the "capitalist concert-hall:" Hanns Eisler and Alan Bush in 1930s England鈥�, in Oliver Dahin and Erik Levi (eds.), Eisler and England, Eisler-Studien 5 (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & H盲rtel, 2014), 33-50.
- 鈥楾ippett and Politics鈥�, in Kenneth Gloag and Nicholas Jones (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Tippett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 68-85.
- 鈥樷�淎 world of Marxist orthodoxy鈥�? Alan Bush's Wat Tyler in Great Britain and the German Democratic Republic鈥�, in Pauline Fairclough (ed.), Twentieth-Century Music and Politics: Essays in memory of Neil Edmunds (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2013), 7-21.
- 鈥楻别惫颈别飞: The Correspondence of Alan Bush and John Ireland, 1927-1961, compiled and edited by Rachel O鈥橦iggins鈥�, Twentieth-Century Music 6/2 (2011), 255-260.
Digital resources:
- Lead contributor to Delius content of the British Library learning resource Discovering Music, including selecting and curating digitised material, writing metadata and commissioning and writing expert content,聽2018.
- Enhanced prototype article 鈥楧elius in Performance鈥� (with David Lewis and Kevin Page) , 2018.
- The Delius Catalogue of Works, (), 2016.
Knowledge transfer:
- 聽Liner Notes, From Home. Five Composers. Five Stories. Villiers Quartet (Resonus Classics RES10297, 2022).
- Radio 3 broadcast of Tippett鈥檚 The Midsummer Marriage, 25/09/2021, expert commentary.
- 鈥�The Dream of Gerontius: A Story in Five Places鈥�, podcast,聽
- 鈥楴ewman and Elgar鈥檚 The Dream of Gerontius鈥�, Newman Review, 2020,听
- 鈥楨lgar and Faith鈥�, article for the British Library learning resource Discovering Music
- Radio 4 Faith in Music: Edward Elgar, 21/12/2020, expert commentary.
- 鈥楧igitising Elgar鈥檚 The Dream of Gerontius at the 探花直播 Oratory鈥� (with Eugenio Falconio),聽
- 鈥楴ewman and Elgar鈥檚 The Dream of Gerontius, Newman Review 2020,听
- 鈥楯ohn Henry Newman 鈥� On the Married and the Single鈥� (with Stephen Bullivant), Journeying with Newman podcast series, 2019,聽
- The Delius Catalogue of Works鈥�, guest blog for the British Library Digital Scholarship blog,聽
- 鈥楧elius in Performance鈥�, article for the British Library learning resource Discovering Music
- Regular blogging for the Catholic Herald, including 鈥楩olk masses weren鈥檛 necessarily a bad idea. But the results have been very problematic鈥� (co-authored with Stephen Bullivant), Catholic Herald blog, 7 March 2017
- 鈥楽ing an Old Song to the Lord鈥� (co-authored with Stephen Bullivant), Pastoral Review 7/2 (March/April 2011), 58-65.
- 鈥榃ho was Alan Bush?鈥�, Clarion [Newsletter of the Alan Bush Music Trust] 12 (2010).
- 鈥楢lan Bush in the 1930s鈥�, Clarion 10 (2007-8).
Joanna has contributed to programmes on Radio 3 and Radio 4, including Sir James Macmillan鈥檚 series Faith in Music.
Joanna has worked with heritage organisations and performers including the Villiers Quartet, the National Trust, and the British Library. She is passionate about exploring ways to engage the widest audiences with the history and performance of classical music.
