The Music department is preparing to deliver an ambitious production of Alice in Wonderland: A Musical Dream Play next week, bringing to life a musical stage adaptation of Carroll’s classic tale first performed in 1886 and written with Carroll’s close involvement. The University Cecilian Choir, soloists and ensemble lift the curtain on Alice’s mysterious, magical and musical world on Friday 21 February at 7.30pm.
Alongside the production, there are two art exhibitions on campus celebrating the bicentenary of Sir John Tenniel, illustrator, and cartoonist, whose illustrations graced the pages of the first publication of Alice in Wonderland in 1865. The production of the Musical Dream Play will feature many of Tenniel’s ilustrations projected above the stage during the performance, and these are currently on display in Colyer-Fergusson Gallery throughout February, allowing visitors the opportunity almost to walk through pages of the book…
Our colleagues over in the University Special Collections and Archives have also responded to the project, creating a special exhibition celebrating Tenniel’s contribution to political cartooning in his own work for Punch, and also in the lasting influence his Alice illustrations have had on subsequent generations of political cartoonists.
Politics in Wonderland: Sir John Tenniel at 200 features original cartoon artworks, cuttings and publications from the British Cartoon Archive by cartoonists including Nicholas Garland, Vicky, Strube and E.H. Shepard, and can be viewed in the Gallery, A Block Floor 1 of the Templeman Library until 20 March; more details here.
Tickets for the performance available here.
I began taking piano lessons when I was five years old and soon after, my teacher noticed I had good pitch, so offered to give me a few singing lessons to see if I enjoyed them (which I did!) 13 years later, I am still thoroughly enjoying both piano and singing, having reached up to Grade 8 standard on piano and achieving Distinction in both my Grade 8 exam and diploma in singing.
In rehearsals and certain performances, we sat in choir stalls in our school Chapel and after each year when students left, you would slowly make your way up the row to the front. It was so lovely because as I progressed further up the row, I was given more opportunities to develop my solo singing within the choir and undertake more responsibilities. This culminated in eventually me becoming Row Leader and during Year 13, I was chosen to be Head of Chapel Choir, which was and still is a position which meant so much to me. Having been a part of the choir going on five years at that point, it was such a lovely role to have to bring my time at Harrogate Ladies’ College to an end. Within this role my confidence in my own music ability grew massively. I was tasked with leading the choir during services, performances, keeping the beat during the unaccompanied morning Amen’s in Chapel (a much harder task than it originally seemed!) and regularly singing solos.
During my time so far as a Biomedical Science student at the University of Kent, all of the extra-curricular music activities has been a lovely way for me to relax away from my studies. I have been extremely lucky and grateful to be a part of the University Chorus, Chamber Choir, Cecilian Choir and a recipient of the Music Performance Scholarship. The Chamber Choir sang at the Cathedral for the Carol Service in December, and I’m currently singing the role of the Queen of Hearts for a production of Alice in Wonderland, and looking forward to singing in Canterbury Cathedral with the Chorus, Chamber Choir and at Choral Evensong with the Cecilian Choir later in the year.
Music has always been a very important part of my life. I have been playing the recorder and the cello for 15 and 13 years respectively. In various orchestras and ensembles from Baroque to contemporary music, some of them international, I have experienced how music does not know any borders.
I am very excited for our next performance, the meditative Advent Breathing Space with Christmas carols and antiphons in a candlelit medieval church this Friday.
Even though you cannot study music on the University’s Canterbury campus, the Music Department offers an amazing variety of opportunities for students who want to get involved. It feels like all the different musicians and ensembles are part of one big family. I am very grateful to be part of that family.
Tomfoolery also played the audience out with The Charleston and American Patrol, before performers and audience mingled in the foyer for a post-event glass of mulled wine.
Before the event, the student barbershop quartet, the Razor Sharps, took to the foyer-stage to entertain the arriving audience with a selection of popular favourites, setting a suitable scene for a trip down Memory Lane.
Thanks to all those who took part; we brought fun, we brought sunshine, we brought love!
Plans for the Wednesday event include live music on the foyer-stage throughout the day, and there’s the possibility of a Scratch Orchestra play-through of popular film scores, and even choruses from Messiah.
We look forward to welcoming you through the doors of Colyer-Fergusson during Welcome Week, and especially next Wednesday – come and find out how to make rehearsing and performing a part of your university experience, whatever course you may be studying!
It was lovely to welcome back some former members of the Choir and University alumni to take part; thanks too to organist Charles Francis, Organ Scholar and sixth-form pupil at St Edmund’s School, for playing for the service.
