All posts by Daniel Harding

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

Smoke and mirrors

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Creating windows where there are none in the concert-hall this morning, in preparation for the Invitation to the Dance concert celebrating the music of Lully next month.

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The conceit is to turn the concert-hall into the Palace of Mirrors in Versailles as a backdrop to the secular and sacred pieces in the programme, complete with a picture of the famed Hall on the projector-screen behind the performers.

WP_20160121_008Now all I have to do is persuade all the instrumentalists and singers to don period costume…

The concert is on Weds 17 February at 1.10pm; details here.

Scholars Spotlight

Scholars’ Spotlight: Edward Styles

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Continuing the series profiling Music Scholarship students at the University of Kent; this week, first-year Physics student and tuba player, Edward Styles.

In the past I have had many musical opportunities in bands and orchestras in an around my county including the Devon Youth Wind Orchestra, Devon County Youth Brass Band and the School band at Ivybridge Community College. These bands have helped me progress in music throughout my school years with their challenging and exciting repertoire. The bands have toured in many different countries including France, Italy and Spain. I have also attended a work experience with HM Royal Marine Band Service where I got to perform in a concert with them.

Edward Styles With TubaI have also been a member of the Royal Navy Volunteer Band in HMS Drake situated in Plymouth for three years, which holds many concerts throughout the year. I was the soloist playing bass in the Ballroom for Volunteer Band in their annual competition against the other Military Volunteer bands across the country. The band was awarded runner-up for that year. The volunteer band also trains for marching and I have learnt many marching routines throughout the time I have been there.

I have also performed Øystein Baadsvik’s Fnugg Blue for solo tuba which is a very technical piece of music as it requires the performer to sing at the same time as play their instrument. The pieces also includes beat-boxing. If you have not heard of it you definitely should look it up! [Here’s a brilliant introduction to the piece, in which the composer himself takes you through the piece’s inception. And talks about skiing, hunting and moose…]

At the University of Kent, I am a member of the Orchestra which is a great opportunity for me to enjoy classical music as until now I have not been in any full orchestras. I am very proud to have been accepted in the Orchestra as it produces such a great sound and the members are all at such a high level in performance. I am also a member of the University Concert Band which has a exquisite supply of fantastic pieces that we play! All of which give me great pleasure when performing with them.

This year I have started a new, small ensemble which concentrates on Bavarian oom pah music; however the band is also very fluid and we are planning to extend our repertoire to anything the members wish to perform. This is to allow the members to perform great pieces in a band without having the hassle of tracking down a full band sheet music score. The band consists of two clarinets, two trumpets, one trombone and a tuba. We have not had any concerts yet as we only started practicing in December 2015!

See other profiles in the series here.

International Impact, Scholars Spotlight

In profile: Lydia Cheng

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First-year Law student, violinist, and Music Performance Scholar, Lydia Cheng, reflects on coming to the University.

Lydia_Cheng_webWhere do you come from?
Toronto, Canada

How did you first get into playing the violin?
I first started on the piano at the age of 5. About a year later, I joined a violin group class and I loved it and it’s been with me ever since.

What’s your musical background?
Apart from playing as a soloist, I love chamber music. The collaboration with other musicians and friends is a completely different type of performance and is something I enjoy doing as much as possible. Back home, I am a member of a piano trio – Radiance Trio – and we perform and compete together. Last year, we were national finalists of the Canadian Music Competition.

What made you choose Kent as a place to study?
The UK is well-known for its multitude of great schools and with cousins having studied here as well, it was always a dream for me to study in the UK. I’ve had a long-time interest in studying law and as direct entry law is not an option in North America, I knew England was the right place for me. When it came to choosing a school, I knew I wanted a place where I could continue with music. Kent’s Symphony Orchestra and String Sinfonia drew me in.

Lydia_Cheng02_webWhat music-making are you involved in?
I am currently playing in the Symphony Orchestra and String Sinfonia.

What have you enjoyed most about your first term?
I loved the Baroque Christmas Concert. It was my first concert in Colyer-Fergusson and was an exhilarating experience. The atmosphere was warm and festive and all our rehearsals coming up to the concert just fit together like the final piece of a puzzle. It is not often that I get to perform with harpsichord or with choir, so to have this performance opportunity in a such a beautiful hall was a wonderful way to start my musical journey through Kent.

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The String Sinfonia ahead of the Baroque Christmas concert in December
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The String Sinfonia and Cecilian Choir: A Baroque Christmas
Notes on Music

All aboard! New brochure now online

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Our new What’s On series of events from February to June has gone live this morning, with full details of all the events coming at you over the next six months.

Concert Band & Big BandOur annual visits to Canterbury Cathedral sees Minerva Voices in the Crypt next month in Vivaldi’s Gloria, whilst the Chorus and Orchestra come together in Beethoven’s Mass in C and the Symphonie fantastique by Berlioz in March. The first of two concerts from the Cecilian Choir and Sinfonia will recreate the era of Louis XIV in a lunchtime concert celebrating the music of Lully in February, and at the end of March they bring two dramatic choral works by Vivaldi to St Peter’s Methodist Church in Canterbury. You’re also invited to leap aboard the Musical Express! with the Concert and Big Bands later in March, with a steam-driven programme including music by Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington and Philip Sparke.

flute_sheetmusicThe Lunchtime Concert series continues, with music from Total Brass and the Native Oyster Band, and our resident ensemble, CantiaQuorum, brings Wynton Marsalis’ Fiddler’s Tale to the concert-hall on 19 February –  the American theme continues in April with a concert by the Chorus and Orchestra including Gershwin’s popular Rhapsody in Blue with pianist Helen Crayford. And the #EarBox series exploring links between music and visual art returns to Studio 3 Gallery in two events – choral music from Minerva Voices and a concert by the Flute Choir. The Music Theatre Society takes the stage with some furry friends in a combination of puppetry and show-tunes, and there’s even some musical wizardry as part of ‘A Wonderful Week of Words’ in an informal lunchtime concert featuring music from Harry Potter and other magical pieces. There’s also a brief look ahead to come of the events taking place as part of Summer Music Week in June.

CantiaQuorumWe’re also pleased to welcome many external concerts and events to Colyer-Fergusson over the coming months, including pianists Malcom Binns and Imogen Cooper, the Aurora Orchestra, and many local ensembles; see all that’s to come in our online calendar here, or download a copy of the new brochure here (pdf). Or view the department events at a glance on our digital fridge-door of post-It Notes here.

All aboard…

Furley Page logo
Sponsors of the Lunchtime Concert series
Notes on Music

Tomorrow belongs to those that can hear it coming: David Bowie

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The world mourns the passing of the extraordinary David Bowie; like Miles Davis, someone ceaselessly reinventing himself in order to ford a new direction.

Photo: Adam Bielawski
Photo: Adam Bielawski

The man, like the music, refused to recognise boundaries. Bowie was present at the European peremiere of Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians; the affair with Minimalism continued in the Low Symphony and Heroes, in which Bowie’s music is seen through the eyes of Philip Glass. As Glass himself observes in the interview below, Bowie’s music ‘went beyond the niceties and the categories of pop music.’ Glam-rock; ambient; the Berlin Period; pop; the stylistically-eclectic Black Tie, White Noise; the music refuses to behave, to fit neat categories.

 

A dedicated instigator, not follower, of fashion, Bowie has been called a ‘professional suit-wearer,’ attuned as he was to the power of the visual spectacle.  Acting, composing, performing; Bowie’s career was lived like the opening of Let’s Dance, a in a state of continual lift-off, always moving forward, and ready to break out into something new. It’s impossible to hear that wild, visceral introduction and not be grabbed by its sense of lifting you up. The start of New Killer Star, the opening track on ‘Reality,’ feels like some long-limbed insect struggling awkwardly climbing into view before it launches into flamboyant, swaggering rock (flam-rock ?).

BowieA true Everyman; in his different stage creations, his flamboyant outfits and swaggering musicianship, he spoke to you in a way that made you feel his music was addressing you, and you alone, that showed you that being different was something good, some thing of to be proud. The poet John Siddique put his finger on it earlier, writing on Twitter ‘Thank you for helping make room in this world for the strange arty kids.’

The RCA advert promoting Heroes carried Bowie’s own line, ‘Tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming.’ He certainly did that. Put on your red shoes and dance the blues, to mourn the death by celebrating the music.

 

Notes on Music

Celebrating the life of David Humphreys

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It was with sadness we heard the news over Christmas that David Humphreys had passed away at the age of ninety-three, and yesterday we attended David’s memorial service in Barham, a chance to reflect on a remarkable life and career lived to the full.

David was a terrific supporter of music at the University of Kent, having come to the University to read History after retiring from a career as a lawyer; choral singing was very much a part of David’s life, and he sang with the University Chorus as well as other choirs around Kent and in London. As a benefactor, his generous support gave countless students in the Chamber Choir the opportunity to perform in the historic and sonorous surroudings of Canterbury Cathedral Crypt each year, in a memorial concert for David’s wife, Julia. Always a vibrant presence, he would regularly find himself enthusiaistically drawn in to the group photographs taken at the end of each concert, which gave him the opportunity to meet the choir, to talk with them, something that David, always a ‘people-person,’ did with clear relish and much enjoyment. In 2012, the Crypt concert was a special celebration of David’s ninetieth birthday.

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David with the Chamber Choir in 2012 on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday

This year’s Crypt concert falls on the occasion of what would have been David’s ninety-fourth birthday, and this year’s choir, Minerva Voices, will, fittingly, be giving a performance of Vivaldi’s joyous and celebratory Gloria, in a concert which will be dedicated to both David and to Julia. A tremendous character, an enthusiastic supporter of the musical life of the University, and a great friend; he will be much missed.

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David Humphreys (1922-2015)
Jazz Booth, Keeping It Real: reviews.

Christmas Swingalong brings the term to a festive conclusion

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Colyer-Fergusson Hall was packed to the rafters yesterday evening, for the now traditional Christmas Swingalong featuring the University Big Band. Led by a charismatic Ian Swatman, the band launched into a festive programme of popular favourites, including a sassy rendition of Santa Baby from our very own Music Administrator, Sophie Meikle, who sashayed from the percussion section forwards to deliver a teasing performance. Elsewhere, first-year Doug Haycock crooned his way through Nat King Cole’s The Christmas Song, and saxophonist Peter Cook joined Sophie later on to sing Baby, It’s Cold Outside, in which both singers were clearly having far too much fun.

WP_20151216_011Interspersed with the Big Band’s light-footed jazz were communal carols from the Brass Group, standing arrayed along the front row of the choral-risers and themselves joining in the spirit of the gig with Christmas jumpers. Honestly, you’ve never seen such a vast collection of seasonal knitwear outside M&S…

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Swingin’ Sophie…!

A clearly delighted audience wouldn’t let the band depart without an encore, to which the group responded with a deft version of ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,’ before audience and performers decamped to the foyer for post-gig mulled wine and mince pies. There was even some suitably seasonal headgear being sported by some of the audience too…

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Phoebe’s hat-trick…

The Big Band’s Christmas gig is always a favourite amongst audience and players alike, with a vibrant and celebratory atmosphere drawing the department’s term of music-making to a close. It’s been a terrific term; on behalf of the team here, huge thanks to all the students, staff, alumni and external members for your commitment and participation over the course of the autumn – we couldn’t do it without you. And as the sound of the Big Band recedes into the distance, it simply remains for me to say, as the band themselves did last night; have yourselves a merry little Christmas!WP_20151216_008