Jane Austen & Company: Introducing 'Music & the Regency Part II'

Jane Austen & Co.'s Fall 2025 series 'Music & the Regency, Part II' begins this week!

Part of the Jane Austen Collaborative, Jane Austen & Co. is a free web series focused on the life, histories, material culture, and novelists living in the transatlantic 18th and 19th centuries. Each series includes lectures, Q&As, and digital programming. The aim of Jane Austen & Co. is to bring engaging and informative public humanities programming to audiences all over the world. All lectures and discussions are recorded live and uploaded on Jane Austen & Co.'s website and YouTube afterwards.

Without further ado, here is the 'Music & the Regency, Part II' lineup!

Lecture: 'Frivolity, Foppery, and the English Gentleman at Music'

Speaker: Lidia Chang

Date and Time: Friday, October 17th 7:00PM-8:30PM ET

Registration Link: https://www.janeaustenandco.org/event-details/frivolity-foppery-and-the-english-gentleman-at-music-lidia-chang

In Austen’s England, music-making was an activity rich in social meaning. However, as a multifaceted performance of one’s social class, nationality, and gender, music-making had to be managed carefully. Austen’s novels offer a valuable window into the restrictive musical culture of Regency England, revealing nuances about how different kinds of people were allowed to engage with music. This talk will explore the complicated web of anxieties (especially xenophobia, homophobia, and class slippage) at work in the musical culture of the time, the gendered subtext of “frivolity”, and what we can learn from Frank Churchill (among others) about the many dangers of male music-making during this period.

Lecture: 'Jane Austen, Home and Away'

Speaker: Jeanice Brooks

Date and Time: Saturday, November 1st 1:00PM-2:30PM ET

Registration Link: https://www.janeaustenandco.org/event-details/jane-austen-home-and-away-jeanice-brooks

Though visions of Austen as a strictly “domestic” novelist have long been discarded, most accounts of her relationship with music continue to emphasize narratives of containment, highlighting themes of gentility and female accomplishment. This talk in contrast explores how music making shaped perceptions of people and lands far beyond the British home. The heterogenous and highly international vocal and instrumental music in Austen’s repertoire explored relationships with Scotland, events on the Continent including the French Revolution, and Britain’s colonial expansion, among many other topics. In constructing the musical scenes in her fiction, Austen (and her early readers) drew upon music as a way of apprehending and exploring the world.

Lecture: 'A Song for Jane'

Speakers: Penelope Appleyard and Jonathan Delbridge

Date and Time: Saturday, November 22nd 12:00PM-1:30PM ET

Registration Link: https://www.janeaustenandco.org/event-details/a-song-for-jane-penelope-appleyard-jonathan-delbridge

​​Professional musicians Penelope Appleyard (soprano) and Jonathan Delbridge (pianist) are bridging the worlds of literature, history and classical music with their Regency inspired concert programs and recordings.  In this talk they reveal the new song they have commissioned, recorded and released to celebrate Jane Austen’s 250th Anniversary - a musical setting of her teenage poem ‘Ode to Pity.' They will discuss the concert program it was written for (Sense & Musicality), introduce the historic square piano they use to perform it, and will intersperse their speaking with live performances!

As mentioned Jane Austen & Co. talks are free. However all talks are pay-what-you-want events. You may attend for free or give a small donation. Donations are appreciated in order to keep these talks free for our audience. For more information about Jane Austen & Co. and to watch past talks visit their website. You can also follow Jane Austen & Co. on Facebook and Bluesky. We hope you can join us for these illuminating talks and discussions!

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