Rehearsals for Summer Music Week were especially welcome this week, as the ensembles returned to the concert-hall for the first time since last November.
Orchestra returns to the hall
All week, the hall has been reinvigorated with the sound of Concert Band, Big Band, Chamber Choir, String Sinfonia and Orchestra rehearsing for the series of events in a few weeks’ time; and several of the Music Scholars have been working on chamber music as well.
Concert Band back in actionString Sinfonia
It’s a welcome return to live music-making, hearing the building resound to ensemble music once more.
Our series highlighting some of this year’s Music Performance Scholars continues with first-year Kent and Medway Medical School Music Performance Scholar, Michael Lam, playing Schumann.
In this single-take performance, Canadian pianist Michael performs a selection of movements from Schumann’s Album für die Jugend(Album for the Young) , Op. 68.
Filmed in Colyer-Fergusson by KMTV.
Watch performances by other Music Scholars and Award Holders in the dedicated Playlist here.
Musical nostalgia from Brazil in today’s #MinervanMiniatures piece rediscovering forgotten piano repertoire written by women composers.
Today, it’s ‘Souvenirs du Passé‘ by Emilia P Dormund, published around 1904; the piece appeared in O Malho, a satirical weekly publication in Rio de Janeiro between 1902 and 1954; until 1926, the magazine regularly published a piano composition as part of its content.
Enjoy this lyrical, slightly melancholic waltz, a musical memory of the past…
For the first time since December, we’re able to resume in-person rehearsals once more, as we come together in preparation for this year’s somewhat smaller (but no less welcome!) Summer Music Week.
It’s the first week of term, and at first the Chamber Choir and String Sinfonia have begun rehearsals, as well as some of this year’s Music Scholars in preparation for various recitals.
Photo: Flo Peycelon
Wednesday night saw Concert Band and Big Band back in action:
Photo; Jonathan Stott
And Thursday saw the Symphony Orchestra coming together tutti for the first time since March 2020:
Photo: Ian Swatman
rbt
It’s a very welcome return to music-making! Follow the pictorial story through the term over on our Pinterest board here; Summer Music Week is on its way…
It’s time to don your dancing-shoes for today’s episode of Minervan Miniatures, our series dedicated to exploring forgotten piano repertoire by women composers: ‘Odilia’ (tango) from ‘Mis pequeños amigos’ by Maria Lluisa Ponsa (1879-1919), published around 1918.
The series exploring forgotten piano repertoire by women composers, #MinervanMiniatures, unearths this finely-wrought gem by Otillie Heinke (1823-1888), the Sonatine in F major, published around 1876. Enjoy the almost Valkyrie-in-miniature passage in the development, as a gently heroic theme in thirds echoes between the left- and right-hand.
Part of the fun of exploring new repertoire is coming up with creative ideas for programming it; and for the Minervan Miniaturesrecital series next year, exploring forgotten or neglected piano repertoire by women composers, here’s a foretaste of how that might work – The Four Seasons by Women Composers, a suite of pieces reflecting the changing seasons, all written by women.
Not your usual Vivaldi!
The suite I’ve put together is of music by Marguerite Balutet, Mary Earl, Carrie Williams Krogmann, Tatiana Stankovych and Nannie Louise Wright, ranging from the opening Valzer di Primavera through to Autumn: A Tone Poem and closing with Winter and A Skating Carnival.
See more of the repertoire in the series on our YouTube playlist here.
Our project for the next academic year focusing on piano repertoire by women composers has been developing nicely recently; I’ve been at work researching further pieces, and have recorded several as part of highlighting some of the works which will feature.
A series of movements from the charming suite, A Wreath of Melodies Op. 35 by Carrie Williams Krogmann:
The first movement of a Baroque keyboard sonata by Maria Teresa d’Agnesi:
A wonderfully light-footed waltz by Marie de Croze-Magnan with a deliberately emphatic ‘wrong note’ that appears in the second section:
And the evocative Autumn – a Tone Poem by Mary Earl.
Watch performances by other Music Scholars and Award Holders in the 
