The latest in our Scholars’ Spotlight series of short filmed recitals features second-year Psychology student and soprano, Felicity Bourdillon; a Music Award Holder at the University, Felicity’s recital comprises a brace of Baroque arias – ‘Oft she visits’ from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and ‘Quia respexit’ from Bach’s Magnificat,
Filmed in Colyer-Fergusson Hall and edited by Thomas Connor.
This week’s episode in our podcast series is the first of several featuring Hugh Huddy, who, with his wife Madeleine, is the creative force behind Radio Lento, a podcast series presenting wonderfully evocative soundscapes recorded in the natural environment. From dawn chorus in the Forest of Dean to shingle beaches at Folkestone, each Radio Lento episode presents an immersive listening experience, offering, in Hugh’s own words, ‘weekly sound postcards from beautiful places.’
In this first episode, Hugh reflects on the challenges of recording the natural world; the concept of authenticity and being true to the practice of capturing the environment in sound, in single, unedited takes; and similarities between listening to soundscapes and to music, and the idea of defeating time.
Listen on Spotify here, or on Anchor here.
The Music Department is very grateful to have received part of a legacy left to the University by Barry Wright, an alumnus of the University of Kent.
Barry completed a Diploma in Christian Theology and Ministry as a mature student in the School of European and Cultural Learning, graduating in 2003. During his lifetime, he supported the University as a donor to the Kent Opportunity Fund and supported the Colyer-Fergusson Building, attending the opening event of the award-winning facility in December 2012.
The Music Department delivers a vibrant extra-curricular music provision as part of the experience of life at Kent, ranging from large-scale ensembles such as Chorus, Orchestra, Concert Band and Big Band to chamber ensembles, as part of a rich programme of performances and events each academic year. The end of the academic year is marked by the annual Summer Music Week, a popular series of musical events to mark the end of the University year, involving concerts both in Colyer-Fergusson Hall as well as in the Crypt of Canterbury Cathedral and the Memorial Bandstand at Deal.
“Barry’s legacy will greatly enhance the lives of the musical students who pass through the University of Kent,” said Head of Music Performance, Dan Harding “as one of the bequests that generously support the Music department’s activities each year; from concerts on campus and around the region, workshops with professional musicians, exploring new repertoire and keeping the department pianos and instruments in tip-top condition, the legacy is a wonderful gift that will allow the Music department to continue to develop and enrich the lives of students, staff and members of the local community who take part in its activities each academic year.”
The University remains grateful to Barry for his generosity during his lifetime and in planning his legacy to enhance the lives of future participants in Kent’s extra-curricular musical life. It’s thanks to support from all its donors that the Music Department in particular is able to continue to provide uplifting experiences to all those who pass through the doors of Colyer-Fergusson.
All this week, we are presenting individual chapters from the Cellular Dynamics project, exploring cutting-edge scientific research imagery and video from the School of Biosciences, in dialogue with music.
Filmed during lockdown, the unfolding series brings together image and music in a meditative presentation of both the materials and the methods involved in research, uncovering the hidden beauty in the most mundane of objects in the research laboratory and transforming the process of investigation into an artistic experience, filtered through piano music by Philip Glass, Debussy, John Cage and Tarik O’Regan.
Colyer-Fergusson Hall becomes an immersive platform for highlighting processes operating in both science and music – viral infection and the process of mutation linked to compositional processes in music, together taking the viewer on an odyssey through sub-molecular events at the cellular level.
Chapter One: Abstract
Chapter Two: Materials and Methods:
The series can be viewed as a complete set on our YouTube channel here, including an introduction from Professor Dan Lloyd in the School of Biosciences; read more about the project here.
This week’s episode of our livestreamed webshow, Vinyl Countdown, featured four members of the University staff on the panel, battling live on air for viewers’ votes for their favourite album.
Competing for Album of the Week were Dr Olly Double (Reader in Drama), Dr Harmonie Toros (Reader in International Conflict Analysis), Dr Chris Deacy (Head of Religious Studies) and Will Wollen (Senior Lecturer in Drama).
The albums vying for the title were Dare (Human League), August and Everything After (Counting Crows), The White Album (The Beatles) and Germfree Adolescents (X-Ray Spex).
If you missed this riotously entertaining episode watch it here:
Watch the whole series on YouTube here.
Our In Conversation series continues with pianist and festival director, Libby Burgess.
Pianist, chamber musician and accompanist, Libby’s work has taken her to festivals and concert-halls around the country. She is also Artistic Director of the New Paths Festival, founded in 2016 and which takes place each spring in Beverley, and Co-Artistic Director of Beverley’s own Chamber Music Festival.
In this interview , Libby reflects on finding new ways to engage audiences for the New Paths Festival in light of the pandemic, her own responses as pianist and vocal coach, and looks ahead to her ‘ Bach Project48,’ setting herself the ambitious challenge of playing all of Bach’s 48 Preludes and Fugues in each of the forty-eight counties of England, and what effect playing the entire set in different venues throughout the country might have on her own relationship to the famed set.
There are two option: the interview is free to watch on our YouTube channel here:
Or for those who prefer their content as a podcast, you can listen to the conversation on Spotify here.
The latest in our Scholars’ Spotlight series of short filmed recital by University Music Performance Scholars and Award Holders this week features third-year Film student, Kiyan Agadjani.
Filmed in Colyer-Fergusson Hall on the University’s Canterbury campus, Kiyan performs the opening movement of Schumann’s Kinderszenen.
Congratulations to former Music Scholar and graduate from the School of History, Livy Potter, whose wonderfully intimate, confessional and moving play, Beautiful Man, aired on BBC Radio York last night.
You can listen to the play on BBC Sounds here (scroll to the 18mins 33 seconds mark).
Here, she reflects on the ideas explored in the play, and the influence of Frankie Valli…
I created Beautiful Man for myself, if I’m being totally honest – the actor in me is always demanding parts to play… I wrote it during the summer last year when the weather was glorious and restrictions were half-lifted but life was still very strange. I was in a weird, whimsical, creatively curious state of mind at the time (which you’ll probably be able to glean from listening to the piece).
At its core, Beautiful Man is about carrying on even when the world is falling apart, which I think is something all of us can relate to at the moment. It’s about the small moments that shape relationships, and the hole that opens up when we lose the people we love.
I had been playing around with the character of Hatty in my head for a while, but the structure of the monologue really came together after I listened to Frankie Valli’s ‘Can’t Take my Eyes Off You’ on the radio. I suddenly thought, ‘This song is how I can frame the narrative, how I can make it all come together’. It’s really exciting when this happens – it’s like finding the missing piece a jigsaw you’ve been searching for, to use an obvious metaphor. Music has always been a great creative catalyst for me. I can’t write without having music playing along in the background, and love weaving it into my writing whenever I can.
I hope you enjoy listening to Beautiful Man. I’d like to thank the team at Ilkley Playhouse for encouraging me to write it in the first place, and suggesting that it could work as a radio play.
Livy Potter
