Get ready for Summer Music Week: it all starts this Sunday…!
See all the details online here.
Music to the Max: exchange student Max Mergenbaum on music at Kent
Students from across the world come to the University of Kent, and this is certainly true of the thronging community which also takes part in the musical life of the University each year.
This year, Max Mergenbaum came to Kent to study Politics and International Relations for two terms as an exchange student at the Freie Universität in Berlin. Max played bassoon in the Symphony Orchestra and the Wind Ensemble, and had this to say as he departed these shores to return to Germany.
“Playing in the University of Kent Orchestra was both an honour and a pleasure for me. As a visiting exchange student from Germany, I received a lot of support from the start. Being able to play Verdi’s Requiem in the Canterbury Cathedral was definitely one of the highlights of my year abroad which I will never forget. It was amazing to play together with so many talented young musicians. Following the motto of the music department ‘Whatever you do, do music’ I can only recommend every student coming to Kent to join this fantastic orchestra!”
We wish Max well.
Singing the Ringing Changes: new commission celebrates Summer Music Week
With Summer Music Week set to begin this Sunday, we’ve a week-long series of musical events celebrating the end of the musical year here at Kent; one of the highlights will be a performance on Friday 12 June of Ringing Changes, a Music department commission written especially for the University’s fiftieth-anniversary celebrations this year.
Part of the celebrations focus on the creativity of members of the University community, and Ringing Changes is a genre-busting, multi-media experience written for the University Chamber and Cecilian Choirs, piano, harp and electronics by composer Matthew King, to words by Patricia Debney from the School of Creative Writing, inspired by landscape photography by Deputy Director of Research Services, Phil Ward. The piece combines live performers with a shimmering electronic tapestry that will pick up and re-imagine live sounds captured during the performance, creating a sonic stained-glass window that responds to and refracts the music as the piece unfolds; during each electronic interlude. each photograph that has inspired a response from both poet and composer will be projected above the heads of the performers
The first half of the concert includes choral music by Tallis, Lassus, Schütz and Monteverdi’s joyous Beatus Vir, and it’s very exciting to be combining great figures of the choral tradition with a piece that brings that same tradition right up to date. It’s what universities are about – exploring new territory, creative collaboration, new directions; the piece promises to be a landmark addition to the University’s fiftieth-year celebrations and to Summer Music Week itself.
Read more about the Ringing Changes project on the blog here; details and tickets for the concert on Friday 12 June here.
Summer Music Week is nearly here
In a completely spontaneous, unpremeditated and not-at-all contrived moment earlier, lots of students were found to have completely independently flocked to the Summer Music Week banner in order to share their excitement at all the events, which kick off next weekend. Fancy that…
You too can share in their excitement; see all that’s coming up between Sunday 7 – Saturday 13 June online here. Who knows, next time we might find YOU spontaneously mobbing the banner…(tweet @UKCSummerMusic if you do…).
Love at Studio 3: Music Scholars arias recital
Jarman’s Studio 3 Gallery rang to the tempestuous world of love and loss at the opera at lunchtime today, as several of the Music Scholars presented a selection of operatic arias to an enthralled audience.
Against the backdrop of the current exhibition, Beautifully Obscene: a history of the Erotic Print, several of the singing Scholars brought characters including Delilah, Despina, Orpheus, Dido and Rusalka to life in a programme ranging from the poignancy of Mozart’s Porgi Amor (sung with authority by first-year Charlotte Webb) through an extremely coquettish Una donna a quindici anni from ‘Cosi fan tutte’ (delivered in mischievous fashion by third-year Kathie Kirschbaum), to the heady, epic emotions of Delilah’s Mon cour ouvre a ta voix in a storming rendition from third-year Olivia Potter.
Elsewhere, Gluck’s Orpheus lamented the passing of Euridice in the rich, warm voice of first-year Ruth Webster; Handel’s Bel Piacere had a joyous conviviality in the hands of third-year Philippa Hardimann; final-year Kathryn Cox soared to the heights with Rusalka’s Song to the Moon; there was a lyrical reading of Mozart’s Deh vieni by third-year Rowena Murrell; and second-year Charley Tench gave an affecting, intimate performance of Dido’s Lament.
Our thanks to Katie McGown and the team at Studio 3 for the invitation to continue the #EarBox series of collaborative events, of which there will be more. Meanwhile, the singers are back on Monday 8 June, the second day of our Summer Music Week, in Colyer-Fergusson Hall; find out more here.
#EarBox returns to Studio 3 Gallery next week
Some of the University Music Scholars will be taking a trip to the Studio 3 Gallery in Jarman next week, as the #EarBox series returns on Wednesday 27 May.
Set amidst the backdrop of Studio 3’s current exhibition, ‘Beautifully Obscene,’ the musical programme presents some heady and expressive arias from several operatic heroines, including Delilah’s epic, aching aria ‘Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix‘ from Samson & Delilah by Saint-Saens, Eurydice’s lament for her lost love, Orpheus, from Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, the ‘Song for the Moon’ from Dvorak’s Rusalka, and pieces by Mozart and Purcell.
The programme starts at 1.10pm, admission is free. Please note that some of the works in this exhibition contain explicit content – and some of the music is pretty sensual too…
To get you in the mood, here’s the aria by Saint-Saens performed live.
Tokaido Road photography exhibition at Beach Creative
Part of the ancillary events accompany the Tokaido Road performance coming to the Gulbenkian, Beach Creative in Herne Bay is currently hosting an exhibition of photos by Wynn White.
Wynn White is an American fine art black and white photographer and printer living in Japan. A selection of his beautiful images are projected alongside the historic Hiroshige woodblock prints during the chamber opera. A particularly ‘hands on’ photographer, Wynn does all of his own gelatin-silver processing and printing, getting involved in every step of the process. He also uses various historic techniques of printing, including salt, cyanotype, Vandyke, argyrotype and platinum/palladium.
The exhibition at Beach Creative runs from Tues 12 – Sun 24 May; admission is free, more details can be found here. Tokaido Road is performed at The Gulbenkian Theatre on Saturday May 23: details online here. Our first Lunchtime Concert this term explores themes of East-meets-West in music for two pianos by Debussy and Ravel with poems read by Nancy Gaffield from her cycle on Friday 22 May at 1.10pm in Colyer-Fergusson Hall performed by Your Loyal Correspondent and Matthew King – details online here.
Powerful new exhibition in Colyer-Fergusson Gallery: Earthbound Women
Our second exhibition in the new Colyer-Fergusson Gallery space is a powerful, energy-filled series from Canterbury-based collective, Earthbound Women. Entitled Saxon Shore Way: a response to Tokaido Road, the exhibition explores the historic ancient Roman shoreline from Gravesend to Hastings, and features dramatic visions of different sections of the route in mixed-media format including collage, print, etching and collagraph.
The group describes the exhibition as ‘a palimpsest…modern observations written over the ancient history of the Kent coast,’ with some stunning images capturing the visceral power of the sea at Reculver, a haunting nightscape of the moon low over Whitstable, Harty Ferry at Faversham, the river at Chatham and more. The series marks a particularly Kentish reply to Hiroshige’s ’53 Stations of the Tokaido Road’ to which it responds, continuing the themes of travel and landscape begun in the previous photography exhibition by Hope Fitzgerald.
The exhibition runs until 24 May, and accompanies the performance of the chamber opera Tokaido Road: a journey after Hiroshige which comes to the Gulbenkian on Saturday 23 May (details here). Admission to the exhibition is free, gallery open during normal hours.
Read more about Earthbound Women here: follow in the footsteps of the Romans at Colyer-Fergusson…