Cheryll Duncan
Emeritus Professor of Musicology
BMus, MA (Music), MA (Psych), PhD, PGCE, Ad Dip Couns, FRHistS, SFHEA, HonRNCM
Email: [email protected]
Professor Cheryll Duncan is a musicologist who specialises in professional music culture in late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Britain, with a particular focus on legal records of the period. Her research has investigated matters ranging from e.g. performance contracts, music copyright, organ building and concert administration to musicians’ lifestyles and self-fashioning. Cheryll’s essays have appeared in major journals including Cambridge Opera Journal, Early Music, Journal of the American Musicological Society, Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, Music & Letters, Opera Journal and Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle. She contributed a chapter to Geminiani Studies (ed. Christopher Hogwood), and biographical entries to Grove Music Online and Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Her monograph on the violinist, composer and concert promoter Felice Giardini was published by Routledge in 2020, and in that year she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in recognition of her contribution to historical scholarship.
Current and Future Research
Professor Cheryll Duncan is currently writing a short monograph on the eighteenth-century flautist, composer and teacher Lewis Granom, drawing on a recently discovered equity lawsuit which explains the unusual genesis of his flute treatise (1766). Future projects include Giovanni Francesco Crosa and opera in London 1748–50, and a study of the early eighteenth-century singer Jane Barbier.
Research Areas
- Baroque music
- Professional music in late 17th and 18th century Britain
- Opera in London
- Musicians and the law
- Music publishing and copyright
Research Supervision
David Cane: Representations and intersections of queerness and disability in the stage works of Benjamin Britten. (Primary supervisor) Completed 2022.
Anna Wright: The supporters and benefactors of the Royal Manchester College of Music (RMCM): musical patronage and philanthropy in Manchester, 1891–1920. (Primary supervisor).
Leighton Triplow (University of Melbourne): Constructs of gender and character representation in Purcellian song. (Joint supervisor during Exchange programme). Completed 2019.
Selected Outputs
Authored Books
- Cheryll Duncan, Felice Giardini and Professional Music Culture in Mid-Eighteenth-Century London, (Abingdon, Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2020).
Chapters in Books
- Cheryll Duncan, ‘Geminiani v. Mrs Frederica: Legal Battles with an Opera Singer’, in Geminiani Studies, edited by Christopher Hogwood (Bologna: Ut Orpheus, 2013), 399-411.
Journal Articles
- Cheryll Duncan, ‘The Law and the Profits: Lewis Granom and the Royal Licence as a form of music copyright protection’, Music & Letters, 104/3 (2023): 374–404.
- Cheryll Duncan, ‘Henry Purcell and the construction of identity: iconography, heraldry and the Sonnata’s of III Parts (1683)’, Early Music, 44/2 (2016): 271–288.
- Cheryll Duncan, ‘New Purcell Documents from the Court of King’s Bench’, Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle, 47/2 (2016): 1–23.
- Cheryll Duncan, ‘New Light on ‘Father’ Smith and the Organ of Christ Church, Dublin’, Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, 10/1 (2015): 23–45.
- Cheryll Duncan, ”A Debt contracted in Italy’: Ferdinando Tenducci in a London court and prison’, Early Music, 42/2 (2014): 219–230.
- Cheryll Duncan, ”Young, Wild, and Idle’: New Light on Gaetano Guadagni’s Early London Career’, The Opera Journal, 46/1 (2013): 3–28.
- Cheryll Duncan, ‘Castrati and impresarios in London: two mid-eighteenth-century lawsuits’, Cambridge Opera Journal, 24/1 (2012): 43–65.
- Cheryll Duncan and David Mateer, ‘An Innocent Abroad? Caterina Galli’s Finances in New Handel Documents’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 64/3 (2011): 495–526.
Review Articles
- Cheryll Duncan, ‘Opera and Politics in Queen Anne’s Britain by Thomas McGeary’ (Boydell, 2022) in NABMSA Reviews, North American British Music Studies Association, 10/1 (2023): 6–8.
- Cheryll Duncan, ‘Music for French Kings: Amanda Babington (musette)’ (Deux-Elles, 2022) in Criticks Reviews, British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, (8 March 2023): https://www.bsecs.org.uk/criticks-reviews/amanda-babington-musette-claire-babington-cello-david-smith-harpsichord-music-for-french-kings-deux-elles-2022/
- Cheryll Duncan, ‘Venanzio Rauzzini and the Birth of a New Style in English Singing by Brianna Robertson-Kirkland’ (Routledge, 2022) in Women’s Studies Group 1558–1837 Reviews, (10 May 2023): https://womensstudiesgroup.org/2023/05/10/venanzio-rauzzini-and-the-birth-of-a-new-style-in-english-singing-scandalous-lessons-brianna-e-robertson-kirkland-review-by-cheryll-duncan/
- Cheryll Duncan, ‘The Siren of Heaven’: a glimpse into the life and works of Francesca Caccini: Juliet Fraser (soprano) and Jamie Akers (theorbo)’ (Foundling Museum, 26 May 2017) in Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 12/2 (2018): 218–23.
- Cheryll Duncan, ‘Sounds and Sweet Airs: The Forgotten Women of Classical Music by Anna Beer’ (Oneworld, 2017) in Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 13/1 (2018): 226–30.
- Cheryll Duncan, ‘The Lives of George Frederic Handel by David Hunter’ (Boydell, 2015) in Eighteenth-Century Music, 14/1 (2017): 125–7.
Conference Contributions
- Cheryll Duncan, ‘Much want of judgment’?: new evidence concerning the stage career of Jane Barbier’, British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 53rd Annual Conference, St Hugh’s College, Oxford (3–5 January 2024).
- Cheryll Duncan, ‘Giovanni Francesco Crosa and opera in London 1748-50: new evidence from the Court of Exchequer’, Royal Musical Association, 55th Annual Conference, University of Manchester and RNCM, Manchester (11–13 September 2019).
- Cheryll Duncan, ‘Musical life in the King’s Bench Prison c.1760: new evidence from the Courts of Common Pleas and Exchequer’, Music in Eighteenth-Century Britain, 33rd Annual Conference, Foundling Museum, London (24 November 2017).
- Cheryll Duncan, ‘The royal licence as an early form of copyright protection’, International Conference on Music and Power in the Baroque Era, Complesso Monumentale di San Micheletto, Lucca, Italy (11–13 November 2016).
- Cheryll Duncan, ‘Henry Purcell and the construction of identity’, Conference on Musical Biography: National Ideology, Narrative Technique, and the Nature of Myth, Senate House, University of London (9 April 2015).
- Cheryll Duncan, ‘Felice Giardini v. John Cox: new light on London concert life in the 1750s’, British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 43rd Annual Conference, St Hugh’s College, Oxford (7–9 January 2014).
- Cheryll Duncan, ‘Ferdinando Tenducci in a London court and prison’, British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 42nd Annual Conference, St Hugh’s College, Oxford (4–6 January 2013)
Dictionary Entries
- Cheryll Duncan, ‘Cox, John’ in Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press (2024).
- Frank Kidson, William C. Smith and Peter Ward Jones, revised by Cheryll Duncan, ‘Simpson, John’ in Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press (2024).
- Cheryll Duncan, ‘Duparc, (Anna Maria) Elisabeth Rossa’ in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press (2022).
- Winton Dean, revised by Cheryll Duncan and Rachel Allen, ‘Duparc, Elisabeth’ in Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press (2021).
- Cheryll Duncan, ‘Manfredini, Giuseppe’ in Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press (2014).
Professional Activity
Peer reviewer for Music & Letters, The London Journal, Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle and Routledge.
