With the Canterbury Festival in full swing, the music department has a foothold in events both this week and next.
KD Jazz Orchestra
This Friday, our very own conductor of the University Concert and Big Bands, the light-fingered Ian Swatman, is appearing at the Festival Club, St. Alphege Lane, at 8.30pm as part of the exuberant and lively KD Jazz and Dance Orchestra. Alongside Ian are several of our visiting instrumental teachers: Peter Cook (sax), Steve Wassell (sousaphone) and Chris Hall (drums), whilst Kevin Dickon (trumpet) also guests with the University Big Band.
Featuring a foot-tapping programme of music including Dixieland jazz and the music of Michael Buble, this’ll have you dancing in the aisles! (If they permit it, he added hastily…).
Next week, some of the University’s young and talented Music Scholars appear in a lunchtime on Friday 28 October: more on that anon…
It seems but scant moments ago that we were here at the music stand at the University’s Open Day; checking back, I see it’s been about four weeks since last we were here; how time flies when you’re busy getting music together at the start of the academic year!
I walked across to the Sports Hall this morning at 8.30 to set up, accompanying a chap who was coming to the Open Day; he’d come straight from working a night-shift directly onto the campus to come and find out about courses of study in IT: now that’s dedication – hats off to you, sir!
It’s now 9.30am, and we’ve already had two visitors to the ‘Making Music’ stand asking about choral and piano-playing opportunities.
We’ll be reporting live from the stand throughout the day – and on Twitter – keep up via @Unikent_music.
New this time are live updates from the University on Twitter (or via text) from @UniKentLive; follow them for live updates and assistance throughout the day!
10.20am; our usual competition for ‘Visitor from the Farthest-Flung Corner of the World’ has had a strong contender with someone coming from Spain. Nine visitors so far….
12.30pm: we’re now up to thirty-five visitors: no further challenges to the ‘Farthest-Flung’ competition, although a tip of the hat to visitors from Bath and Torquay! A variety of singers and instrumentalists coming to the stand. When’s lunch ?
2pm: heading into the final hour of the day, I notice the Twitter-trending on #kentopenday is keeping the Twitterverse busy, lots of reaction to today’s events from visitors. Visitors from Southampton, Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Hertfordshire and elsewhere having been keeping the music stand busy. Lots of awareness of, and interest in, the new Colyer-Fergusson music building and the opportunities to use it when it opens net summer. And we’ve not even finished the ‘Revels’ that we opened at 10 o’clock this morning: that shows you how busy we’ve been. I wonder if there’s a recognised system for measuring levels of industry by the amount of sweets that have been unconsumed ?
3pm: and that’s it! Good to see so many people interested in making music at the University from September next year, save travelling home, we look forward to seeing you in the new music building!
With the heady excitement of Freshers’ Week behind us, this week sees the musical gears of the University begin to grind into action.
Tonight, the Music Social gives students new to the University the chance to meet this year’s Music Society, and find out about all the music going on this year; it’s your chance to network like-minded musicians, from string and brass players looking to form quartets to singers wanting to audition for Chamber Choir or join Chorus, lovers of ‘Glee’ to find out about Sing! or form their own ensembles, or guitarists and bass-players looking to form a band. Free refreshments, musical entertainment (and possible even a quiz); tonight, Eliot Hall, 7.30pm.
On Wednesday, Concert and Big Band swing into action: Concert Band rehearsals begin at 7.30pm, Big Band at 8.45pm, again in Eliot Hall.
On Thursday, the Orchestra stirs into life: string players at Grade 6 standard and above welcome, woodwind and brass players may also come along and will need to sign up at the end of the rehearsal for principal player auditions this coming Saturday.
Next week: Chorus and Chamber Choir. More details on those two soon.
Whatever your musical tastes and interests, the University has something for everyone! From Chorus and Orchestra to Concert and Big Band, Chamber Choir, jazz, Sing! and Guitar Club, plus a range of music societies catering for your desires: make music a part of your university life.
Visit the music department website to explore the range of music-making activities on offer, and use the ‘Getting Started‘ page to guide you through all the auditions and first rehearsals as term begins.
For all the Fitkin fans amongst us, there’s a veritable Fitkin-fest on Radio 3 this week.
From Monday, and on iPlayer until next Monday, there’s the chance to hear the London premiere of L, written as a present for and here also performed by cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
Then from Tuesday (also on iPlayer for a week here), there’s an interview with Fitkin himself on ‘In Tune,’ together with the composer playing three short piano pieces live in the studio, and a broadcast of ‘Metal’ and an extract from ‘Circuit.’
From tonight, there will be the chance to hear the Prom premiere of his Cello Concerto, also written for Yo-Yo Ma, after which is a broadcast of some of his chamber works performed by the London Sinfonietta Academy Ensemble, from the ‘Proms Composer Portraits,’ where Fitkin will be in conversation with Tom Service, and presenting his ‘Sciosophy,’ ‘Hurl,’ and ‘Sinew.’
A previous post about Fitkin, including the chance to listen to some of his pieces, appeared on here back in February.
A Fervent Feast from Radio 3: don’t miss.
And here’s part of ‘Loud’ from earlier this year at London’s King’s Place:
There is something almost unbearably melancholic about Satie’s elegaic song, ‘Je te veux,’ especially in this beautifully nuanced performance by Jessye Norman.
The first phrase yearns upwards, starting on the mediant and moving E – G – D ; there’s no tonic in this first gesture, instead the phrase reaches beyond it to land on the ‘D’ before falling back to ‘C,’ although not for long: the phrase then descends D – C – B – A, with a brief trip to E before the B (the sweeping melody rising from the bass-clef beginning in bar 5). In fact, on closer inspection, the melody only articulates a ‘C’ once in its whole sixteen-bar duration; the leading-note, B natural, appears to have a greater significance, as though the melody is aspiring to, but canever quite attain, the tonic.
That initial gesture is the key to the whole piece – a yearning, a reaching for something (or someone), with the arch-shape of the melody going beyond the tonic and and moving over it. without staying on it for any significant length. The fact that the melodic line doesn’t dwell on the tonic gives the piece its rootless, moving quality. The only time we really feel at ease is at the end of the verse (and its subsequent reprises), when the line finally descends onto, and remains on, C, a fact Satie emphasises at the eventual end of the piece when the melody ends with those final three descending notes (E to C) transposed up an octave.
(You can see a copy of the score for solo piano here.)
Satie published it in several incarnations – piano and voice (1903), orchestra, brass and piano solo. For all his riotous tricks in the later ballet scores Parade and Relache, the quirky titles and in-score annotations for the performer to read in piano works such as the Sonatine bureacratique, Je te veux is perhaps a rare moment of Satie wearing his heart on his sleeve. It’s a short, lyrical, and somehow achingly sad moment amongst the rest of Satie’s challenging output.
It’s 9am, and the doors have just opened to this year’s University Open Day; we’ve been here since 8.15 setting up, and the ‘Making Music at Kent’ stand is bursting with colour in the display of posters and photographs from recent years’ events. (If we can, I’ll get a photo uploaded to show
In-spiring future students...
you!).
The Director of Music arrived with bags of sweets to sustain us throughout the day, and has already had her first cup of coffee; it’s always important to know when the tea-booth has opened. We’re looking forward to a stream of visitors interested in making music and the Music Scholarships.
We’ll keep you posted throughout the day as to how it’s going, thanks to wireless technology here in the Sports Hall.
10am: an hour in, and we’ve seen ten visitors and their families, coming from Norfolk, Surrey and elsewhere: the prize for the visitor who’s travelled the farthest is currently held by someone from Swansea. The Director of Music is celebrating a short lull by cracking open the ‘Revels’ as I type, and I’m going to grab my first cup of tea – I wonder if there’s any Earl Gray ?
11.45am: I’ve only just managed to get the tea (no Earl Gray, alas) as suddenly there was a swathe of visitors from especially far-flung corners of the globe: the number of people arriving at the stand has now risen to thirty three, with a particularly international appeal: the record for Visitor From The Farthest Place has now been smashed by someone from Hong Kong, although there’s competition from people from America and Italy. And I thought Kent was the UK’s European university ?!
1pm: four hours in, and we’ve now seen forty five visitors: that’s roughly ten an hour, one every six minutes: the interest is coming now from Devon, Essex and Oxford, with lots of singers, saxophonists, flautists and brass players. I nabbed a suitably toothsome-looking sandwich from the tea-booth back at 12pm, and it’s been sitting here ever since waiting to be consumed. There might be a slight lull now it’s lunchtime: let’s see…
1.40pm: good and bad news; we’ve managed to fit in lunch, but have eaten all the ‘Revels.’ Woe indeed…
2.15pm: visitor numbers have now reached over sixty, coming from Bucks, Berks, Harrogate, Leicester and Hampshire. With only forty-five minutes left, the end is in sight; our voices are starting to tire, but morale is boosted by the chocolate biscuits the Director of Music is about to open… There’s a definite sense that music is becoming an increasingly attractive provision for students making their university choices, wanting to continue with making music and taking instrumental or singing lessons alongside their formal degree programmes; with the new music building set to open its doors shortly before these visitors would arrive as first-year students, they’re in for a fantastic time.
3pm: and that’s it. Final count 67 visitors, including several more from Oxford, Windsor, Kent, and one from Sweden competing for the Farthest Distance Travelled. The winner must be the one who came from Hong Kong, surely ? Thanks to everyone who came to the music stand today, we’ve met a great many interesting and talented musicians: safe journeys home to all. We’re signing off: see you all again.
Anyone who might be apprehensive at the future of jazz in Britain need only listen to last night’s broadcast of the ‘BBC Presents’ stage at this year’s Cheltenham Jazz Festival on Radio 3 to be reassured that the future looks bright.
The show presents two hours of live sets from earlier this year, and features the emerging talents Trish Clowes, Rachel Musson’s Skein, Saltwater Samurai, and Edinburgh-based The Discordian Trio.
Music ranges from the dextrous sax-playing of Trish Clowes, with her wonderfully agile group (including a cellist) – special mention to drummer James Maddren for his vibrant yet subtle drumming – to the deft, bright-sounding improvisations of Rachel Musson, the elctro-dance-infused Saltwater Samurai from South London, and the free-ranging explorations of The Discordian Trio.
The programme also includes interviews with some of the young players of today, who may well be the stars of tomorrow, if the quality of their music-making is anything to go by. Trish Clowes talks in particular about the benefits of studying at the Royal Academy, including working with luminary of the British saxophone world, Iain Ballamy, and about the challenge of being a working jazz artist. All the groups demonstrate an assurety and confidence in their playing that bodes well.
Check them out on iPlayer, and see photos from the event on the Jazz on 3 Flickr site here: the future of British jazz, in the hands of these young musicians, is very bright indeed.
Because it does. Doesn't it ? Blogging about extra-curricular musical life at the University of Kent.
I walked across to the Sports Hall this morning at 8.30 to set up, accompanying a chap who was coming to the Open Day; he’d come straight from working a night-shift directly onto the campus to come and find out about courses of study in IT: now that’s dedication – hats off to you, sir!
Visit the 
From Monday, and on 
