Congratulations to University Music Performance Scholars Tom Wust and Meg Daniel, who performed trio music at the Galvanising Cafe last Friday as part of Dockside Live, a series of lunchtime concerts each Friday during term-time run by the University’s Arts and Culture team.
A home-turf event for fourth-year clarinettist Tom, who reads Business Studies on the Medway campus, the concert also featured second-year flautist and Law student, Meg, in a colourful programme with Your Loyal Correspondent joining them on the piano in the Petit Suite by Debussy, the slow movement of Piano Concerto K467 by Mozart, and closing with three cheeky waltzes by Shostakovich.
The Galvanising Cafe is a great, informal performance space, and the opportunity to avail oneself of coffee and pre-concert toasted sandwiches and fries is never one to miss…
Following the concert, we grabbed some of the students in the audience who had travelled over from Canterbury to visit the HMS Gannet, and then a crucial post-performance analysis over a meal at Nando’s with the Medway Music Engagement Officer, Chris Barrett (pictured, right).
Our thanks to Chris for the opportunity to participate in the Dockside Live series – we look forward to coming back…
Tomfoolery also played the audience out with The Charleston and American Patrol, before performers and audience mingled in the foyer for a post-event glass of mulled wine.
Before the event, the student barbershop quartet, the Razor Sharps, took to the foyer-stage to entertain the arriving audience with a selection of popular favourites, setting a suitable scene for a trip down Memory Lane.
Thanks to all those who took part; we brought fun, we brought sunshine, we brought love!
Sharing the stories behind her song-writing, she let the audience know that her first single, 2017’s Don’t Kill My Vibe, was written in difficult circumstances, and the fact that she could sing a song about respect at Glastonbury was something special. She then launched into a fierce rendition of the song, with a new-minted intensity, exhorting the audience with fierce gestures to clap along and showing a masterfully defiant side. There was a new-found swagger to her material as well; ‘Don’t stay if you don’t mean it, ‘Cos you f~cked me up again / Just walk away, and we’ll just leave it / ‘Cos I won’t give my heart in vain.’
Drawing on research media from the School of Biosciences, Anna’s piece explores the intangible boundary between science and art in a collaborative piece for choir, strings, percussion, soloists and film-projections by artist Skyla Bridges. Conducted by Deputy Director of Music, Dan Harding, the University Chamber Choir and String Sinfonia, together with Anna herself on violin, pianist Jacob Downs, second-year postrgraduate Leon on percussion, and oboist Dan Lloyd (also Deputy Head of the School of Biosciences) unfurled Anna’s evocative piece against a tapestry of ambient electronic soundtracks and beneath Skyla Bridges’ wonderfully beautiful projections taken from research imagery by Dr Chris Toseland.
Afterwards, performers, audience and guests mingled for a post-concert reception to celebrate the fruition of a project that has been in rehearsal since January. Read the programme from the event yourself 
Four final-year violinists then delivered a pitch-perfect performance of Telemann’s second Concerto for Four Violins; Zaneta Balsevic (reading Music Performance), Florence Nightingale Obote (Biosciences), Molly Richetta (Mathematics) and Melody Brooks (Psychology).
The programme took a folksy turn in the form of two saxophone duets from two first-year Music Scholars, David Curtiss (reading Physics) and Megan Daniels (Law), in melodies from Bulgaria and Spain.
The concert drew to a close with final-year sopranos Fleur Sumption (History of Art) and Helen Sotillo (LLB Law Senior Status) in a lyrical rendition of the ‘Barcarolle’ from The Tales of Hoffmann.
During the winter months, the church offers the opportunity to escape the pace of the Digital Age, and sit for an hour in a fifteenth-century venue by candlelight, listening to a sequence of music and silence as a means of creating a calm, meditative space in which to reflect and relax.
The Chamber Choir performed an evocative combination of choral music and silence by candlelight, creating a meditative space rich in contrasting colours. The church bell striking eight o’clock during a moment of silence partway through was especially atmospheric, matched by the sighing of the wind in the roof, the creaking of the ancient timbers and the guttering candle-flames dancing in the draughty dark.
A magical experience for an appreciative congregation; the Choir is talking about doing the event again, so watch this (meditative) space…
The action continues tonight, as the University Chamber Choir performs a meditative service by candlelight at St Michael’s Church, Hernhill, called Breathing Space, an hour-long event combining music and silence that creates a space for tranquility and reflection. The event starts at 7.30pm and is free, and draws the week to a close in an oasis of calm.