All posts by Daniel Harding

Head of Music Performance, University of Kent: pianist, accompanist and conductor: jazz enthusiast.
Keeping It Real: reviews., Notes on Music

Old and New and the Carol Service: University music in action

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Two events in three days with which to catch up, Loyal Readers!

Last Saturday brought the University Chorus and Symphony Orchestra together in a programme combining music from the past with reimaginings from a modern perspective: Vivaldi’s dramatic iMagnificat, two of Handel’s bombastic Coronation Anthems, Walton’s recasting of Bach in The Wise Virgins, Matthew King’s orchestral vision of Mozart’s piece for mechanical organ, and Respighi’s light-footed Ancient Airs and Dances Suite no.2.

The University Chorus and Orchestra in rehearsal during the afternoon

Director of Music Susan Wanless wielded the baton in front of the assembled masses to a packed house, and it was lovely to welcome back some familiar faces and musical alumni to take part in the performance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last night, it was the turn of the University Chamber Choir to participate in the Carol Service, an evocative event at Canterbury Cathedral bringing together members from across the University community in a programme of lessons and carols to explore the season of Advent.

Second-year Music Scholar, Hannah Ost (pictured here in rehearsal), launched the service in energetic fashion conducting Gaudete.

Elsewhere, Your Loyal Correspondent directed the eighteen-piece choir in a lyrically colourful setting of Lullay My Liking by Will Inscoe, a sixth-form pupil at St Edmund’s School, and a deft Ding Dong! Merrily on High. Earlier on, second-year postgraduate Law student and Music Scholar, Helen Sotillo, ushered in the Christmas season with a clarion-clear solo verse of Once In Royal David’s City – as it lifted into the upper reaches of the Nave, the season unfurled above the heads of the assembled congregation, stood in  an expectant, candlelit hush.

Next up: tomorrow brings a Christmas lunchtime concert with the Flute Choir and Minerva Voices, and later the annual festive knees-up that is the Big Band’s Christmas Swingalong. Well, it IS the season…

Notes on Music

Court in the Act: rehearsing Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas

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Rehearsals are underway for a performance in February of Purcell’s ground-breaking Dido and Aeneas by the University Cecilian Choir, String Sinfonia and soloists.

Driven by characterful choruses, the Chorus has a significant role to play throughout each of the acts. Whether courtiers to the Queen, a coven of witches or lusty and infidelious sailors, the Choir will have a major part to play in the gradual unfolding of the witches’ nefarious scheming to come between the Queen of Carthage and the Trojan prince…

The Choir has been working hard in rehearsals each week, and is here captured getting into character as palace courtiers for the start of Act I.

Soloists in the opera are drawn from the Choir, including third-year Music Scholar, Fleur Sumption and first-year Felicity Bourdillon, seen here in an earlier rehearsal for Acts I and II.

Banish sorrow, banish care…

Notes on Music

University Chorus prepares to unleash Vivaldi in December concert

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The University Chorus is busy rehearsing works by Vivaldi and Handel each Monday evening, in preparation for the  annual December concert.

As part of the programme, the Chorus will perform Vivaldi’s fiercely committed Magnificat, rich in dissonance and expressive chromaticism, as well as two of Handel’s Coronation Anthems, for which they will be joined by the Symphony Orchestra. Undergraduate and postgraduate students sit alongside University academic and administrative staff, senior management and members of the local community, all bringing Vivaldi’s dramatic work and Handel’s buoyant Zadok the Priest off the page

The group has been working hard throughout the term; there’s not long to go until the performance next week – come and hear the results for yourself on Saturday 8 December…

Notes on Music

Radio days: Musical Theatre Showcase ‘You Wish’ next month

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The University Musical Theatre Society is busy rehearsing ahead of its showcase next month, You Wish, in which a mysterious man hosts a radio competition in which the winner’s dream can become a reality.

All listeners have to do is send in a video of what they most desire; but for some, their desperation is their downfall and the audience witness the unexpected. With dreams ranging from whimsical wishes to deep, dark desires, some will do anything to win – but only one will come true…

The show explores themes of love, loss, friendship, betrayal, fame and fortune, including songs from  Avenue Q, Chicago, Hamilton and many more. Bring your dreams and desires along to Colyer-Fergusson Hall  on 1 and 2 December at 7.30pm…

Tickets: Full – £8 / Concessions – £5 available online here.

Please note: the show contains some strong language, references to abusive relationships and some representation of emotional abuse.

Notes on Music

From the archive: the Herald Tribune, 1952

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One of the marvellous aspects to the sheet music archive the Music department was bequeathed by the Ken Lewis Dance Orchestra is the peripheral documents occasionally to be found lurking amidst all the music.

The Ken Lewis Dance Orchestra in the 1950s

As regular readers will know, the Ken Lewis Dance Orchestra was a dance band active throughout the county during the 1950s and 60s, run by George Morgan, from Gravesend. The band played throughout the region, including playing as the warm-up band for the Ted Heath Orchestra in at Chatham Town Hall. In 2005, George and his wife Maureen (the latter Chief Manager of the band’s sheet music!) generously donated the entire archive of band music to the department, and in 2013, the Deputy Director of Music, Dan Harding, put together a group of student players to bring the music to life once more as General Harding’s Tomfoolery. The band danced its way through that academic year, and formed once more in 2016-17.

Going through the archive, this morning’s find is a copy of a special section of the Herald Tribune, published in Paris in July, 1952, commemorating the maiden voyage of the SS United States from America to Europe, when it was to dock at Southampton. The ship weighed in at 53,000 tonnes and measured 990 feet, and was making its way to Le Havre, where it was to dock later that month.

The pull-out section celebrates ‘A great new liner for the Atlantic service,’ and is a wonderful historic document to discover amongst the original band-folders. More finds to be revealed later…

Music and Wellbeing

Mondays Rock!

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This academic year, the Music Department has become a workplace member of Rock Choir, the pioneering national organisation with over 20,000 participants which encourages everyone to sing. Under the expert and inspiring direction of alumnus Jonathan Grosberg, staff and students meet every Monday lunchtime and, without needing to read a note of music, have so far learnt Shut up and dance with me and A Little Respect – including moves!

Members of staff are coming along from a whole range of departments across the campus – it is still not too late to join this term. Director of Music, Susan Wanless, is thrilled with the way the idea has taken off and from all the feedback she has received, making music is clearly very good for you.

Karen Cherpin, Administrator to the Head of School, School of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science
I absolutely love it! I find it really uplifting and it definitely improves my mood and energy levels. I always go back to my office feeling revitalised and ready to face whatever the afternoon may throw at me.

Katie Van Sanden, Industrial Placement Co-ordinator, School of Computing
Love it, love it, love it! Perfect antidote to the Monday blues – it feeds the soul! With singing, harmonies, new friends and lots and lots of (unexpected but very welcome) laughter, what’s not to like? And Jonathan is just brilliant!

Danika Jarrett, Project Co-ordinator, Information Services
It gets me away from my desk, gives me something else to focus on for that time, and is great for wellbeing because I’m totally immersed in what Jonathan is saying and concentrating on what to sing, which is great for mindfulness and controlling breathing. It’s also been nice to meet people from other departments in the University as well. I hope it continues to go from strength to strength as I’ve been recommending it to all my colleagues!

Susan Wanless

Notes on Music

Cellular Dynamics wooes audience at Norwich Science Festival

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The developing music-meets-science project, Cellular Dynamics, travelled to Norwich yesterday, to take part in this year’s Norwich Science Festival, and wooed the audience at the historic Octagon Chapel.

The dialogue between live music and scientific research data projections featured in the festival as one of ‘five weird and wonderful events not to be missed,’ according to the Norwich Evening News, and so it proved. Pianists Dan Harding and Matthew King performed a programme of beguiling music for two- and four-hand piano music, whilst Dan Lloyd, Deputy Head of the School of Biosciences, led a visual exploration in images and video of the School’s latest research, capturing the everyday and the sub-molecular using high-resolution spectroscopy. It’s a fascinating way of engaging audiences with both recent developments in the research community, as well as capturing lesser-seen (and often lesser-celebrated) aspects of the laboratory environment and the people who work in it.

We are grateful to festival producer, Natalie Bailey, for the invitation to participate in the festival, and for looking after us and making us welcome.

Read more about the Cellular Dynamics project here.

Legacy for the future, Notes on Music

Seat of learning: dedicating the David Humphreys memorial bench

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A lovely occasion this morning, which saw the dedication of the memorial bench to the late David Humphreys, a wonderful supporter of music-making at the University, and whose legacy continues to support the University Chamber Choir’s annual concert in the Crypt of Canterbury Cathedral.

(l-r): Peter Coleman, Joseph Bryant, Dan Harding, Floris Claassens, Marek Iwaniak; Carmen Mackey, Alice Shires, Helen Sotillo, Fleur Sumption(lir): Peter Coleman, Joseph Bryant, Dan Harding, Floris Claassens, Marek Iwaniak; Alice Shires, Helen Sotillo, Fleur Sumption

The bench, which overlooks the historic Cathedral city from the hill between Eliot and Rutherford Colleges, commands perhaps the finest view of Canterbury, and was a favourite spot of David’s. Members of his family were present at the occasion, at which some of this year’s Chamber Choir sang Tallis’ If Ye Love Me, one of David’s favourite choral works.

Members of David’s family together with staff from the Development Office, Estates, and the Chamber Choir

Our continued thanks to David and his family for their terrific support, which provides a wonderful experience for members of the Choir each generation.

David Humphreys with the University Chamber Choir at the Crypt Concert in 2012