Abolition Song and its Legacies

Berta Joncus is delighted to invite you to the culminating evening for her two-year research project Abolition Song and its Legacies (ASaiL), bringing together music, scholarship and contemporary reflection. Alongside performances, the hour‑long programme features contributions from the project’s researchers, offering insight into the historical and musical contexts behind the work.

Eighteenth‑century British composers and musicians pioneered the use of art song and instrumental music to protest the Atlantic slave trade, creating a powerful body of Abolition Song and related instrumental works. Through archival study and practice-based research, the ASaiL project has explored how these pieces placed the experiences of enslaved Africans — drawn from first-person testimonies, newspaper accounts and sentimental reconstructions — at the centre of their musical storytelling.

Much of the music performed this evening has received its present‑day premiere through ASaiL, offering audiences a rare opportunity to hear these works anew and consider their legacies today.