{"id":1240,"date":"2020-04-02T16:15:24","date_gmt":"2020-04-02T15:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/?p=1240"},"modified":"2020-04-02T16:15:24","modified_gmt":"2020-04-02T15:15:24","slug":"music-scholar-spotlight-olivia-condliffe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/2020\/04\/02\/music-scholar-spotlight-olivia-condliffe\/","title":{"rendered":"Music scholar spotlight: Olivia Condliffe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Olivia Condliffe, a first year student studying History, is a University Music Performance Scholar, and features in the University of Kent Music Department blog<\/a>. In this blog, Olivia talks about her involvement with the music scene on campus.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019ve been encouraged to play music from a young age, coming from a musical family. At first, I started on the recorder in Year Two, of which I played throughout primary school in various local recorder festivals, however I have always wanted to play the bassoon. I\u2019m not sure entirely why, but the fact that it was such an odd and rare instrument, plus coming from a woodwind-based family, I felt a connection towards that section of the orchestra. Before I discovered the bassoon, I played the clarinet for a year and started learning piano, to show to my parents my commitment that I would have for the bassoon, and partook in a local clarinet group.<\/p>\n

My high school had an excellent music department and I was really lucky to take part in the ensembles there. I played in the concert band and choir, going to Paris on tour in 2014, where we even played at Disneyland! I was also a founding member of the\u00a0Bassbusters<\/em>\u00a0ensemble; made up of bass instruments which often aren\u2019t showcased as much as melody instruments, such as the bassoon, baritone sax and cello. During school I was also part of the theatre pit band, performing musicals such as\u00a0Les Mis\u00e9rables<\/em>; this was an exciting way to play the bassoon with actors and artists.<\/p>\n

I also had the chance to play in the junior and senior concert bands of local performing arts scheme in Staffordshire for eight years. I was also lucky enough to be part of the local bassoon ensemble; six of us at one point, a rarity in itself! I grew up in a tiny village and there was a myriad of musical activities there, I joined the community choir and was part of the village orchestra, which for a village of 1000 people, had three bassoons!<\/p>\n

Outside of my area, I\u2019ve also been privileged enough to be part of national orchestras such as the National Children\u2019s Wind Orchestra and National Schools Symphony Orchestra; these were nonstop weeks of immersion with players from all over the country! I was part of the Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Orchestra for three years until I moved to university. I enjoyed playing with members of Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in venues such as Sage Gateshead and playing first bassoon in\u00a0Scheherazade<\/em>\u00a0in July last year!<\/p>\n

Since joining the University of Kent as a History student in September, I\u2019ve tried to immerse myself in the wide range of musical ensembles that make up the department. One of the reasons I chose Kent was for its great facilities and the warm atmosphere in Colyer-Fergusson. One of the highlights of my first year was the production of\u00a0Alice in Wonderland<\/em>\u00a0in February, in which I performed in a solo quartet with a full choir!<\/p>\n

I am a member of the Orchestra and Concert Band and hold a Music Performance Scholarship, which gives me the brilliant opportunity to continue bassoon lessons. Since receiving this, it\u2019s given me a chance to be much more confident in my playing, and I\u2019m excited for all the music to come.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Olivia Condliffe, a first year student studying History, is a University Music Performance Scholar, and features in the University of Kent Music Department blog. In … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34790,"featured_media":1242,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[124,37,9871],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34790"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1240"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1241,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240\/revisions\/1241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}