The University’s Musical Theatre Society returns to Colyer-Fergusson next week, with an epic showcase full of songs which explore the struggle between our need to be part of the pack and yet also to follow our dreams.
Follow The Leader is a collection of powerful and revealing songs that prove that the quest for power may not always run the safest path, explored in music from Hamilton, Kinky Boots, Chicago, RENT and others.
The cast have been hard at work in rehearsals over the course of the term, and the directors of the showcase, Antonia Kasoulidou and Rakel Svendsen, declare that the show promises to be an inspiring, ingenious and intoxicating piece which explores the conflict between the deep desire to follow the herd, and the yearning to break with tradition and risk becoming an outcast.
Find out if you have the herd instinct or are prepared to take risks on forging a new path, as Follow The Leader comes to Colyer-Fergusson Hall on Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 December at 7.30pm; tickets available here.
The group was originally formed in 2013 to breathe new life into a set of dance-band music
originally bequeathed to the Music department by the Ken Lewis Dance Orchestra. The original folders of music contain vintage original copies of pieces from the 1930s through to the 1950s, including swing classics such as Tuxedo Junction and American Patrol, brittle with age and with faded Sellotape sometimes holding the fragile pages together. The group gigged throughout the year, including a memorable afternoon which had Colyer-Fergusson Hall filled with people dancing along.
The band has returned with faces both old and new, bringing together undergraduate and postgraduate musicians from a variety of subjects from both the Canterbury and Medway campuses, and is busy rehearsing for its first gig on the foyer-stage next month, Weds 14 December. We had a mock-up yesterday – leaving space for a drum-kit, not one but TWO bassists, and a couple of additional brass instruments – to check we can all fit on the stage. Who knows…
Bring your dancing-shoes on Weds 14 December at 1.10pm, when Tomfoolery will play a festively swinging set to get people In The Mood for the Big Band’s seasonal favourite, the Christmas Swing-along, at 5.15pm later in the day. More details 
Curated by Dr Emma Hanna in the School of History, the exhibition examines music away from the solemnity of memorial services, and looks instead at its use as entertainment in an era before the widespread ownership of gramophones, as a means of boosting morale during the conflict, as a recruitment tool, and as a means of keeping the men at the Front in touch with feelings of home.
As Dr Hanna writes in her introduction accompanying the exhibition, music ‘was unmatched in its power to cajole, console, cheer and inspire during the conflict and its aftermath.’
On display until Friday 25 November during normal opening hours, the exhibition is free to attend, and is part of the Gateways to the First World War project. You can talk a short video walk-through of the exhibition 
Amongst the repertoire the ensemble is currently preparing are works by Handel, Vivaldi, Elgar’s Serenade for Strings, Brahms and Mozart.
Their first performance is next month; keep an eye on the web for details of their concerts throughout this year.
On Thursday 10 November, a special performance by the Cecilian Choir, conducted by Your Loyal Correspondent, commemorates the anniversary of the Battle of the Somme with a new choral piece written by American composer David Lang in Studio 3 Gallery. Memorial Ground is an evocative, haunting meditation on the Battle of the Somme, but also reaches beyond it to commemorate all those who have lost their lives in conflict ever since. The piece was commissioned as part of the nationwide 14-18NOW project.
On Friday 11 November at 11am, third-year Music Scholar and trumpeter Alex Reid will play the Last Post in the Registry Garden; this is followed at 1.10pm by a lunchtime concert focusing on poet and composer Ivor Gurney. Arranged by Dr Kate Kennedy, the event dramatizes Gurney’s life as musician, soldier and eventually asylum patient, following his progress in his own words and music, with humour and poignancy.
A dramatic way to launch our new series: our thanks to Kopanya! Next up is the Kentish Piano Trio in music by Beethoven and Suk on Wednesday 9 November – more details