Where you go, I go: Preludes exhibition now open

We’re delighted to announce that the latest exhibition in Colyer-Fergusson Gallery is now open!

14184510_10154537619231180_3622527117156399451_nCreated especially for the Colyer-Fergusson Gallery, Preludes (where you go, I go) by visual artist Adam de Ville is a series of images in response to Sinking of the Titanic by composer Gavin Bryars, a haunting meditation on the idea of what happens to the music played by the band as the great ship sank.

Adam’s exhibition imagines the same effect happening to paint and paper in a sequence of images capturing particular moments before, during and after the event. Based on accounts, personal stories and surviving artefacts, the series is a moving contemplation of the human side to one of history’s great tragedies.img096

preludes_exhibitionThe exhibition is showing in Colyer-Fergusson Gallery until Friday 4 November during normal opening hours, and admission is free. Find out more about Adam here.

A love supreme: happy birthday John Coltrane

Happy birthday to the jazz giant and saxophone colossus, John Coltrane, born today in 1926.

john-coltrane-757011Legendary sideman, bandleader, endless searching to break new ground, Coltrane’s long shadow reaches beyond his untimely death from liver cancer at the age of forty, and embraces his time as sideman with Miles Davis to his own groups with figures including McCoy Tyner, Eric Dolphy, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones to his increasingly experimental work with Pharoah Sanders, and late recordings with his second wife, Alice, as pianist.

Difficult to choose a commemorative listening track, but I’ve gone with the opening to 1964’s Crescent; an exploratory, questing opening leads into a slow, stately articulation of the melody, punctuated by uneasy rumbles on kit, before stepping off into a brisk swing, fistfuls of McCoy Tyner’s colourful chords underpinning a bold, expressive improvisation from Coltrane that typically grows more expansive as it unfurls.

Happy birthday to a jazz great.

6,774 miles away: second-year Music Scholar on a year abroad

Studying at the University of Kent offers multitudinous opportunities to enrich your life, and this year one of our Music Scholars has taken it to a whole new level.

Music biosciences prizes webSecond-year Music Scholar and Biosciences student, Ruth Webster, (pictured above, second from left) will be familiar to those of you who have come to choral events over the past couple of years – Ruth sings with the University Chorus, Chamber Choir, Cecilian Choir, Minerva Voices and has sung as soloist in Vivaldi’s Gloria, Handel’s Messiah and Horovitz’s Horrortorio; she was also joint winner of the John Craven Music Prize for her contribution to music-making last year.

accommodation_malaysiaThis year, though, Ruth is trading in the wood-panelled concert-hall and the Biosciences lab for exotic food and clothes markets, tropical storms and the richly-hued life of Malaysia, where and she and several other students from the University of Kent are studying at the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) in Johor Bahru, in the very south of Malaysia.

Gurdwana Sahib Sikh Temple, Johor Bahru
Gurdwana Sahib Sikh Temple, Johor Bahru

Ruth will be writing about and sharing her year abroad on her blog: see how she gets on at http://ruthelizabethwebster.blogspot.co.uk/. We wish her well for this coming year, and look forward to seeing her back singing in Canterbury in September 2017!

University alumna finds herself at Abbey Road studios as part of Final Fantasy XV launch

University alumna and singer Suzannah Lipmann found herself at Abbey Road studios yesterday, as part of a special livestream broadcast.

London_Phil_Choir_SuzannahFor one night only, there was a special performance to launch the soundtrack to the new Final Fantasy XV game by composer Yoko Shimomura, performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Choir, conducted by Terry Davis; the composer herself was present at the performance. Pictured above, Suzannah is on the front row of the sopranos, eight from the left.

The hour-long event presented highlights of music from the forthcoming game soundtrack, and can be watched here:

 

Whilst reading Social Anthropology (including a year abroad in Japan) at Kent, Suzannah was a regular performer featuring prominently in the former Jazz @ 5 sessions on the former foyer-stage in the Gulbenkian, as well as singing with the University Chamber Choir and Chorus.

Using the skills developed as an undergraduate, she now handles the Japanese side of her family business in metal-trading, whilst slo learning Japanese at SOAS, and travels to Japan for three weeks each year on business. As well as the London Philharmonic Choir, Suzannah sings with the Godwine Choir and in a band.

London_Phil_Choir_Suzannah_02

“The LPC gets to do some pretty exciting gigs,” she enthuses, “like this one, the BBC Proms and others at the Royal Albert Hall and the Royal Festival Hall!” Suzannah is next in action singing in a performance of Verdi’s Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall on 24 September. Fantastic to see she’s still keeping up her music in Life After Kent in such a spectacular fashion!

With thanks to the London Philharmonic Choir for the images.