Many congratulations to second-year Wildlife Conservation student in the School of Anthropology and Conservation, and Music Performance Scholar, Charlotte Farmer, who this week achieved Distinction in her grade 8 examination on the flute with the ABRSM.
Her exam included repertoire by Telemann, Enesco and Chopin, and took pace at St Peter’s Methodist Church in Canterbury, accompanied by first-year Music Performance Scholar, Ronja Haller.“I really enjoyed playing and St Peter’s church was lovely, especially in the sunshine,” reflects Charlotte. “A lot of hard work went into it, which I’m especially grateful to Ronja for. It turns out that the ‘Presto’ of the Enesco wasn’t actually necessary but apparently a ‘welcome bonus’ which the examiner kindly told me about at the end! All in all it was over in a flash and I had no idea what the result would be, so it was a lovely surprise this morning.”
Charlotte will be playing in Concert Band next week in the spring gala concert – many congratulations to her on her success.
A morning devoted to Faure’s sublime Requiem was followed by an afternoon working on Brahms’ epic Symphony no.4 with the orchestra alone.
It was a pleasure to welcome back a few familiar faces as some alumni who will be joining us for Saturday’s concert came back to Colyer-Fergusson to take part in the rehearsal.
Directed by Floriane Peycelon, the ensemble delivered a programme focusing primarily on women composers, with a scintillating Suite for Strings by Libby Croad; a movement from the wonderfully colourful Piano Quintet by Louise Farrenc, for which the ensemble was joined by first-year pianist, Ronja Haller; an enigmatic compositional response to Tallis’ If Ye Love Me by local composer Juliet Lewis (who also conducted the piece); before the programme closed with a full-blooded string orchestral ‘reimagining’ of music from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, with the closing Lament featuring final-year student, Jack Chan, on solo viola.
A great programme and an enthusiastic audience; many thanks to the church’s Coffee Concert series for welcoming us.
I would like to thank Sophie Meikle and Dan Harding, as well as the members of the university’s music department, without whom the pursuit of my passion would not have been possible.
and the term came to a rousing conclusion with the Big Band’s annual Christmas Swingalong, conducted again by the evergreen Ian Swatman sporting a Christmas Hull City jumper.
And making her debut with the big band was first-year singer, Tayo Fanifosi, whi delivered several crowd-pleasing festive numbers.
I’m hoping to enter the legal field, but apart from that, I’ve love to be a donor for the Music Performance Scholarship in the future, to continue this kind act. People really benefit from the scholarship, and I do think the scholarship improves the uni as a whole.
Moonbeam Theatre are a non-profit company who create multi-sensory theatre for children with profound and multiple learning disabilities and special educational needs. We’ve been a graduate theatre company at the University of Kent since 2020 and have been facilitating workshops and shows ever since. We’ve had a busy year this year, taking our show DIVE on tour. DIVE is a multi-sensory under-the-sea adventure which encourages our participants to get involved in exploring the ocean setting of the performance. We’ve visited over 50 SEN schools, charities and community groups and this summer made our Edinburgh Fringe Festival debut.
Being a part of EdFringe was a real bucket list achievement, and having sold out shows was amazing! The reviews we’ve received from all our audiences have been incredible and we are already planning our next show, which is all about The Garden, to tour for 2024. As a University of Kent music department alumna, I am very pleased to say I even play my clarinet in the show! [Well done, Maddie: keep playing!]
But even more exciting is that we have just released the DIVE soundtrack on Spotify; as a company we wanted to make sure our audiences had access to the music so they could continue to experience DIVE in their own spaces or simply keep listening to the relaxing sounds of our ocean setting. To create the music we worked with our music producer, Adam Pattrick, who helped us put all our ideas together. The tracks were created to be ambient and calming, but watch out for the The Chatty Clam’s Hideout as that’s the exception!