On Wednesday, to mark International Day of Peace, Minerva Voices, conducted by Dan Harding, performed Gounod’s motet, Da Pacem Domine, prefaced by a poem read by second-year Alice Baker.
Watch it online here.
Tag Archives: Gounod
Sirocco Ensemble and Chamber Choir draw spring term to a close
The spring term concluded with a final flourish last week, with three events in the space of five days. Monday’s evocative lunchtime concert with the Silk and Bamboo Ensemble was followed on Wednesday by an epic charity-raiser at St Edmund’s School with the University Big Band and Concert Band teaming up with the school’s own big band (see previous post).
Continuing the busy period for music at the University, the last concert on the Friday saw the newly-founded University Sirocco Ensemble making its debut with terrific poise; conducted by Deputy Director of Music Dan Harding, staff, students and Music Scholars combined in a deft and delightfully refined performance of Gounod’s Petite Symphonie before an enthusiastic audience at St Peter’s Methodist Church, Canterbury.
The church’s rich acoustics also resounded to the University Chamber Choir, who presented a mixture of sacred and secular pieces, concluding with a touching rendition of Lullabye by Billy Joel, conducted by second-year Drama student and Scholar, Steph Richardson, and a mesmerising performance of Whitacre’s Sleep with Dan Harding.
Our thanks to St Peter’s Methodist Church for the invitation to perform as part of their lunchtime concert series.
An eclectic week, and a fine way to draw down the curtain on all this term’s music-making. Keep an eye on our ‘What’s On’ web-page from mid-April, when there will be details about our celebrating the end of the academic year with our Summer Music events from 6-10 June.
Blowing in the wind: new University Sirocco Ensemble to give its debut performance
Quietly and steadily rehearsing over the past few months, like a beautiful butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, the newly-founded University Sirocco Ensemble is set to make its debut at the end of this week.
Comprising wind and brass players from amongst the University staff, undergraduate and post-graduate students, the ensemble was founded during the autumn in order to accommodate the wealth of talented members of the University’s musical community. History and Drama students sit next to Anthropology and BioScience lecturers, and we’ve been putting together Gounod’s popular and playful Petite Symphonie.
The nine-piece Sirocco Ensemble will be giving its inaugural performance in a lunchtime concert on Friday 30 March at 12.30pm at St Peter’s Methodist Church, in Canterbury, where it will share the programme with the University Chamber Choir in what promises to be terrific final musical flourish to the spring term.
The concert is free, with a retiring collection; more details here.
Come and support the newest addition to the University’s music-making at the end of the month.