Tag Archives: music

New building comes alive with music for Open View

Yesterday’s Open View event, hosted by architects Tim Ronalds, saw the new Colyer-Fergusson Building come alive with music, visitors and guests, as musicians performed in all the available spaces throughout the building.

Guests in the new foyer

Between 3-8pm, the entire place was abuzz with jazz, choral music, solo percussion and piano, acoustic guitar and string quartet music, an aural backdrop as invited guests toured the new facilities, and saw (and heard!) it in action. It was also the first opportunity to test-drive the new performance stage in the foyer, which proved to be a fantastic space with terrific acoustics, ranging from the delicate close-harmony singing of vocal trio ‘The Canterberries’ to the liquid soprano-sax improvisations from sax teacher, Peter Cook. There was even a guest appearance from Ned, the acoustic consultant from the firm Arup Acoustics, on sax (and congas) as well; truly an occasion in which music could be made by many.

Percussion Scholar Carina Evans
Pianist Scholar Sharon Yam puts the Steinway through its paces
Saxophonist Scholar Tim Pickering and your loyal correspondent try out the new foyer-stage
Guitarist Andrew Kitchin
Pianist Scholar Susan Li gets to grips with Rachmaninov in the concert-hall
Through a glass; darkly: string players in one of the upper rehearsal rooms
The Canterberries in ‘All I Want for Christmas’
Second-year Emma Murton rehearsing the Chamber Choir

With thanks to all the musicians who took part, and brought the entire building to life.

Live from Open Day

Here we are again at the #kentopenday, the October session for those who missed the mid-week one last month. As usual, we’re ready at the ‘Making Music’ stand (once again in Eliot College Hall), to let visitors know about all the music-making activities taking place at Kent this year.

Follow us on the blog and on Twitter as we progress through the day.

(And in a novel twist, this time we’re running an informal competition with Hannah over on the stand for the School of SSPSSR for the Visitor from the Farthest-Flung Corner title: see who wins at the end of the day!)

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11am: fourteen visitors to the stand so far; and the VfF-FC competition is currently being held by a lady from, well, California, although she is currently living in Brighton – we’re hoping Hannah in SSPSSR will allow us that one ?!

12pm: midway through the day, about twenty visitors thus far; no-one challenging the California-Brighton trophy, though… Lots of interest from people interested in studying Law and Architecture…

2pm:: into the final hour, visitors still trickling in over lunchtime. Bad news on the VfF-FC competition; I understand SSPSSR have had someone from Perth, Western Australia visit them; may have lost the award this time around, will have to consult GoogleMaps to ascertain distances…

3pm: and that’s it for the day! Over forty visitors came to see us: safe travelling home to all. I’m off to consult a variety of maps to find out if we were pipped to the post by someone visiting SSPSSR from Australia…