Tag Archives: Colyer-Fergusson Building

Building for the future, Notes on Music

Exciting new choral commission to mark ten-year anniversary

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As part of the anniversary celebrations to mark the ten-year anniversary of the opening of the Colyer-Fergusson Building on the University of Kent’s Canterbury campus, we’re delighted to have commissioned a new piece by the composer Russell Hepplewhite.

The piece, written for mixed-voice choir and string orchestra, is a setting of the Magnificat interspersed with four new poems written by Nancy Gaffield in the School of Creative Writing. Each poem, inspired by an historic painting, responds to the canticle, the ‘Song of Mary,’ in which Mary rejoices that she will give birth to the Christ-child and the positive changes which will be wrought in the world.

Recently named one of the Evening Standard’s 1000 Most Influential People in London, Russell Hepplewhite has won critical acclaim for his ground-breaking operas for children including Shackleton’s Cat, Silver Electra and Laika the Spacedog, written for English Touring Opera. His music appears on CD releases for labels including Regent Records and has been featured on BBC Television and Radio, as well as being performed at venues including the Royal Albert Hall, the Wigmore Hall, the Library Theatre Luton, the Purcell Room and the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Most recently, his collaboration with the poet Michael Rosen, a set of children’s songs entitled Everything, is included in the Friday Afternoons song bank project, inspired by Britten’s song-cycle of the same name.

Nancy Gaffield is Reader Emeritus in Creative Writing at the University of Kent and an award-winning poet with six poetry publications. Her first collection of poetry, Tokaido Road (CB editions 2011) was nominated for the Forward Best First Collection Prize and was awarded the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize that year. Other poetry publications include Continental Drift (Shearsman 2014), Meridian (Longbarrow 2019) and Wealden (Longbarrow 2021), which is a collaboration with the musical group The Drift. She was commissioned to write a libretto for the opera, Tokaido Road: A Journey after Hiroshige, composed by Nicola LeFanu. It premiered at the Cheltenham Music Festival in 2014 and subsequently toured nationally. She regularly gives workshops, lectures and readings, including festival appearances such as the Aldeburgh and Ledbury Poetry Festivals, the Canterbury Festival, and the Words and Music Festival, Rolvenden, Kent.

Russell’s music is richly colourful, highly expressive and also immediately accessible, and it’s very exciting to have commissioned a brand new work to mark the opening of Colyer-Fergusson, the building which forms the centrepiece for extra-curricular music at Kent. By bringing Russell’s translucent musical language together with Nancy’s brilliantly evocative poetry, it will be a fantastic opportunity for students and staff at the University to give the premiere as part of the year-long anniversary celebrations, and a unique take on a traditional moment in the liturgy.

The University of Kent Cecilian Choir singing Choral Evensong at Canterbury Cathedral

The new setting will be premiered in Colyer-Fergusson Hall by the University of Kent Cecilian Choir and String Sinfonia on Friday 31 March 2023, with a further performance later in June as part of the department’s summer music festival.

 

Notes on Music

Exhibition celebrates the construction of Colyer-Fergusson

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The gallery is currently hosting the exhibition of photographs charting the construction of Colyer-Fergusson, originally created as part of our five-year anniversary celebrations marking 2017-18 as the half-decade since we opened our doors at the end of 2012.

The exhibition, on display throughout the summer, is open during normal working hours, admission is free, and there is disabled access.

Building for the future

Celebrations mark five years of Colyer-Fergusson

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Monday 23 October, 2012: the Music Department bids a fond farewell to its home since the mid-80s in Eliot College, and moves into the newly-built Colyer-Fergusson Building, to begin music-making in a purpose-built, award-winning concert hall and practice facilities.

Fast-forward to Monday 23 October, 2017, and the Department celebrated the five-year anniversary since Colyer-Fergusson opened its doors to both the University and the local community (and beyond) with a reception, open rehearsals, tours of the building, and a special exhibition of photographs from the eighteen-month construction project.

It was a real pleasure to welcome donors, supporters, alumni, friends, and key people involved in the initial project, including Tim Ronalds Architects, project managers, and the former Chairman of the Colyer-Fergusson Charitable Trust, the Hon Jonathon Monckton, to share the celebrations. This wonderful building was made possible thanks to a major donation from The Colyer-Fergusson Charitable Trust, a legacy from Sir James Colyer-Fergusson himself, contributions from over 200 other individual donors and support from the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s Matched Funding Scheme; a true coming together of the generosity of Sir James together with many of the donors and supporters of music-making at the University, to establish a landmark building that has afforded new opportunities for rehearsing and performing.

Thanks to their generosity, the Music Department now offers an ever-developing breadth of musical opportunities, both to showcase the extraordinary commitment and talent of the students (and staff) who, each year, participate in extra-curricular performances, as well as to provide the main concert venue for many of the local community groups, schools, youth organisations and visiting summer schools. Alongside other major venues throughout the region, Colyer-Fergusson has now become a key element in the south-east’s flourishing cultural reputation.

Throughout the day, rehearsals in the hall featured student and staff musicians including the Chamber Choir, string ensemble, third-year Music Scholarship flautist Natanya Freedman, members of the Musical Theatre Society, and a special Come and Sing in which everyone present arrayed themselves around the choral risers to sing Somewhere Over The Rainbow.

On behalf of the Music team, our thanks to everyone who attended, who was involved in making the Colyer-Fergusson Building possible, and to the Events team who kept the invited guests fed, watered and on occasion even chased errant balloon-displays which were endeavouring to escape down Giles Lane.

Here’s to the next five years…