The philosophy of music: or the music of philosophy ?
Many thanks to the illustrious Delta Saxophone Quartet, who gave the first of this term’s Lunchtime Concerts in the concert-hall yesterday, and who then stayed on to work with some of the students exploring music both on and off the printed page…
Images (c) Chris Wenham / University of Kent
Our upper-voices chamber choir, Minerva Voices, makes the pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral on Weds 15 February to sing the service of Choral Evensong.
Comprising students from across the University community and Kent and Medway Medical School, Minerva Voices will sing some gloriously colourful contemporary settings as part of the service, including pieces by Jeremy Woodside and Justin Breame; details are in the Music Listings on the Cathedral website here.
Last heard in action singing part of Britten’s Ceremony of Carols in December, the choir is sounding in excellent form, and the service promises to be a wonderful occasion.
The service begins at 5.30pm, and will also be livestreamed on the Cathedral’s YouTube website below.
(Update: the choir begins processing in just after four minutes in to the broadcast!).
The University Cecilian Choir has been hard at work rehearsing a brand-new setting of the Magnificat, the Song of Mary, which the Music department commissioned as part of its year-long anniversary celebrations of the Colyer-Fergusson Building’s ten years. Last night, the Choir was delighted to welcome poet Nancy Gaffield to the rehearsal; Nancy has written four new poems which are interspersed with the text of the Magnificat, with music written by Russell Hepplewhite for mixed choir and string orchestra.
The new piece is an exciting blend of high energy, driving rhythms, lyrical melody and sumptuous harmonic colours, particularly in the sections setting Nancy’s poetry; each of the four poems is written in response to a famous piece of art representing stages in the life of Christ, including Michelangelo’s The Birth of Adam, Ghirandaio’s The Visitation, and Piero della Francesca’s The Baptism of Christ. Here, the music revels in the same richly-colourful textures as each of the paintings; last night was an opportunity for Nancy to talk with the choir about her poems, the relationship to the paintings, and to hear some of the piece coming to life in rehearsal.
The first performance takes place in Colyer-Fergusson Hall on Friday 31 March, with a second performance on Friday 9 June as part of this year’s Summer Music Week; details and tickets for the premiere performance online here. It should be quite something…
More photos from the Anniversary Weekend last month, from the opening event featuring the String Sinfonia and Concert Band, welcoming back alumni performers and the selfie frame in action.
First-year Philosophy, Religion and Ethics student and musician, Sara Davies, reflects on the recent opportunity to work alongside the Chan-Jack Duo on their recent visit to perform in Colyer-Fergusson as part of our Lunchtime Concert series.
On Wednesday, I had the pleasure of watching the superbly talented Chan-Jack Duo play their EP Air as part of the series of lunchtime concerts in Colyer-Fergusson Hall.
This included a 50 minute set of five songs that perfectly blended the east and the west whilst incorporating a multitude of genres from rock, pop, classical, Latin and many more.
I was totally enthralled by the immense talent of both Laure Chan (on violin) and William Jack (on cello and guitar). Their music, a fusion of different cultures, was colourful, emotional and transformative.
After the concert, I had the opportunity to participate in an improvisation workshop with the duo, where we created a fusion that revolved around the pentatonic scale. We explored the different ways in which our instruments could make non-melodic sounds, and I was able to use the body of my guitar to create amazing percussive lines alongside the other instruments.
Towards the end of the workshop, I had the honour of performing one of my original songs to the duo which was amazing! The support and feedback from both of them was particularly help as well!!
All in all, I have to say the Chan-Jack Duo have definitely been my favourite concert here at the university and the opportunity to work alongside them is something I will remember forever.
Sara Davies
As part of the anniversary celebrations to mark the ten-year anniversary of the opening of the Colyer-Fergusson Building on the University of Kent’s Canterbury campus, we’re delighted to have commissioned a new piece by the composer Russell Hepplewhite.
The piece, written for mixed-voice choir and string orchestra, is a setting of the Magnificat interspersed with four new poems written by Nancy Gaffield in the School of Creative Writing. Each poem, inspired by an historic painting, responds to the canticle, the ‘Song of Mary,’ in which Mary rejoices that she will give birth to the Christ-child and the positive changes which will be wrought in the world.
Recently named one of the Evening Standard’s 1000 Most Influential People in London, Russell Hepplewhite has won critical acclaim for his ground-breaking operas for children including Shackleton’s Cat, Silver Electra and Laika the Spacedog, written for English Touring Opera. His music appears on CD releases for labels including Regent Records and has been featured on BBC Television and Radio, as well as being performed at venues including the Royal Albert Hall, the Wigmore Hall, the Library Theatre Luton, the Purcell Room and the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Most recently, his collaboration with the poet Michael Rosen, a set of children’s songs entitled Everything, is included in the Friday Afternoons song bank project, inspired by Britten’s song-cycle of the same name.
Nancy Gaffield is Reader Emeritus in Creative Writing at the University of Kent and an award-winning poet with six poetry publications. Her first collection of poetry, Tokaido Road (CB editions 2011) was nominated for the Forward Best First Collection Prize and was awarded the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize that year. Other poetry publications include Continental Drift (Shearsman 2014), Meridian (Longbarrow 2019) and Wealden (Longbarrow 2021), which is a collaboration with the musical group The Drift. She was commissioned to write a libretto for the opera, Tokaido Road: A Journey after Hiroshige, composed by Nicola LeFanu. It premiered at the Cheltenham Music Festival in 2014 and subsequently toured nationally. She regularly gives workshops, lectures and readings, including festival appearances such as the Aldeburgh and Ledbury Poetry Festivals, the Canterbury Festival, and the Words and Music Festival, Rolvenden, Kent.
Russell’s music is richly colourful, highly expressive and also immediately accessible, and it’s very exciting to have commissioned a brand new work to mark the opening of Colyer-Fergusson, the building which forms the centrepiece for extra-curricular music at Kent. By bringing Russell’s translucent musical language together with Nancy’s brilliantly evocative poetry, it will be a fantastic opportunity for students and staff at the University to give the premiere as part of the year-long anniversary celebrations, and a unique take on a traditional moment in the liturgy.
The new setting will be premiered in Colyer-Fergusson Hall by the University of Kent Cecilian Choir and String Sinfonia on Friday 31 March 2023, with a further performance later in June as part of the department’s summer music festival.
Fourth-year Astrophysics student and Music Performance Scholar, David Curtiss, reflects on his recent sandwich year abroad.
Over the past four years I have had the honour of being able to say that, alongside my degree in Astronomy, Space Science and Astrophysics, I am a music scholar here at the University of Kent. I was awarded the Music Performance Scholarship in 2018 on the saxophone and have loved developing my playing through the various ensembles that are on offer as well as under the fantastic tutelage of Peter Cook. All of this progress led to me being fortunate enough on my year abroad last year (2021/22) to have been accepted into the Tom Walsh Jazz Ensemble at the Jacobs School of Music in Indiana University, Bloomington.
I do also have a particularly large ‘thank you’ to make to the University of Kent Music department and donors to the scholarship programme. Unfortunately, due to several Visa issues I was unable to attend the auditions at Bloomington at the start of term and instead had to submit the YouTube video made by the Music department for the Scholar’s Spotlight series in 2021, which fortunately led to my acceptance into one of the music school’s big bands, without which I would not have had such an incredible opportunity!
I spent my year in Bloomington playing with some phenomenal young musicians in an extremely professional atmosphere under the tutillage of Dr Tom Walsh, whose direction has taught me so much about playing in an ensemble and developed my technique on the saxophone much further than I was at when I arrived.
Over the year we played a huge range of music for big band, from our opening concert in remembrance of the great Sammy Nestico to some contemporary arrangements of Radiohead and other works from young composer emerging on the scene in the USA.
Alongside playing awesome repertoire we were accompanied by guest artists who came to the department and worked some of the ensembles either through jam sessions or in concert including the Emmy nominated Melissa Aldana and the Emmet Cohen trio lead by the “#1 Rising Star Pianist and #4 Rising Star Jazz Artist” as voted by Downbeat (2022).
Both of whom inspired me hugely and their knowledge and passion is something that I hope to take with me as I continue to play, both here at the University of Kent and forwards in my career.
Charlotte Jeanneret, who studied at Kent last year in the School of English as an exchange student and played the flute in Concert Band and sang in Chorus in the Music department, looks back on her experience.
Music has been the highlight of my experience as an exchange student at the University of Kent.
I must say the many extracurricular opportunities are what made me choose Canterbury in the first place, but I never thought it would bring me so much joy and discoveries. Indeed, for example, I used to be stuck with the idea that I could not sing… But the openness of the University Chorus convinced me to take it up and I loved it so much that I am now considering joining the choir of my home university, here in Switzerland!
Although I still have nightmares about Goodwin’s Freefall [who chose that ?! Ed] Wednesday evenings with the Concert Band were always very entertaining and spurred me on musically more than any other ensemble I have ever been part of. I left for England with just one flute and came back with a piccolo also!
Finally, music at Kent has allowed me to meet beautiful people with whom I have loved practising, sharing stands and scores, and who have become awesome friends.
I already look forward to coming back.
