Friday September 4th 2015, 8pm Keynes College, University of Kent, Canterbury
Free entry
Canterbury in the 1960s and 1970s was a hotbed of musical creativity. A community of musicians and bands connected to the city shared an artistic curiosity that encompassed rock, jazz, soul, poetry, folk and contemporary classical music. With a sound that mixed eccentric psychedelia with Miles Davis-style jazz-rock bands such as The Wilde Flowers, Soft Machine, Caravan and Gong had a lasting impact on music in Canterbury and further afield.
This performance features two contemporary bands that share a passion for the Canterbury Sound. Jack Hues and the Quartetare the result of a warped experiment involving an 80’s pop singer (frontman of Wang Chung), a jazz-punk rhythm section (drummer and bassist from Mercurynominated Led Bib) and a classically trained pianist. The younger generation of Canterbury-Sound-influenced bands are represented by The Boot Lagoon, a quartet with incredibly diverse musical paths that converge in joyfully restless jazz-rock riffs.
These bands will each perform a mini set before joining forces to perform the monumental Soft Machine/Hugh Hopper composition ‘Facelift.‘ They will be joined by saxophonist Brian Hopper, who played on the first recording of ‘Facelift’ for the John Peel sessions in 1969.
The original Canterbury Scene emerged in the mid-late 1960s, in parallel with the founding of the University of Kent; indeed the Hopper brothers were raised in Tanglewood, a house which now forms part of the University’s Canterbury campus. Fittingly, the New Canterbury Sound appears as part of the University’s 50th Anniversary Festival, 4-6 September 2015.
This summer Kyla Wight, a BA (Hons) first year student in the Event and Experience Design degree programme at the School of Music and Fine Art, University of Kent, was appointed the Creative Director of the 2015 Rye International Jazz and Blues Festival with directorship of a section of the festival entitled Chapter & Lyric. The festival is a unique and inspirational live music performance and educational project that encompasses both live performances and educational music master classes, encompassing Jazz, Swing, Blues, Soul, Latin, Funk and World music.
While Kyla has brought to this role a wide range of experience in the music industry as a performer and in radio, she claims it is her more recent time studying at the University of Kent that has given her the confidence to go for the job and offer a unique vision for the festival. “The course opened up possibilities of seeing how things could be, how connections and relationships can be made between a location, a situation and how design (in its broadest sense) can communicate a vision and offer a particular experience,” says Kyla.
Peter Hatton, Lecturer in Event and Experience Design commented, “This is at the core of our teaching. Students work on practical and live projects from the day they walk into the studio. The other aspect that is vitally important is to expose students at the beginning of their studies to professionals in the event’s industry, for them to meet, exchange cards/contact details and listen to the first hand accounts of the extraordinary range of ways of working, the areas of specialisation and the careers and roles available. From the first year of study the students feel they are a part of creative community that extends way beyond the University.”
Another aspect of the success of the course is the offer made by our graduates to current students of work experience and placements. Our alumni are moving fast through the hierarchies of creative agencies and marketing companies. Interestingly Kyla has rather turned this upside down by offering our recent graduates roles within the festival, as designers, prop builders, event managers and performers. The creative community continues to evolve.”
Kyla has created a festival within a festival; she is project managing the Festival’s Emerging Talent Event and is the creator of Chapter and Lyric presented at the historic Lamb House in Rye. This will be the festival stage for emerging talent showcasing both the writing and performing talents of musicians.
“The inspiration for Chapter & Lyric was born out of the natural and obvious connection with Lamb House being the home of two distinguished writers of their generations. Chapter & Lyric is a dedicated music event that combines both music composition and song writing that will culminate in both live performance and educational Masterclasses. The bespoke performance stage will be installed within the walled garden at Lamb House positioned in front of the stunning Georgian external façade that will create a wonderful backdrop to this very special event,” says Kyla.
In the lead up to the Festival, Kyla has organized central London auditions for musicians to play at the festival. These have been enthusiastically hosted by the Grosvenor Casino in Piccadilly and became an informal networking opportunity for musicians, music industry producers, PR companies and staff and students from School of Music and Fine Art. Adds Kyla, “John Hornby Skews & Co Ltd have sponsored us by providing guitars for the backline and want to work with Chapter & Lyric in future projects.”
For more info about the Festival, go to https://ryejazz.com/
To listen to the radio interview with Kyla on BBC Introducing Sussex click the link: http://bbc.in/1ME2FcB
The School of Music and Fine Art is delighted to announce that Grenville Hancox, well known for his work as an educationalist, performer and conductor, together with his groundbreaking research with Stephen Clift on the benefits of singing for health, is the new Honorary Professor in Music, Health and Wellbeing.
He was awarded the MBE for services to Music in 2005 and presented with a Civic Award by Canterbury City Council for services to the community through music making in 2006.
Professor Kevin Dawe, Head of the School of Music and Fine Art, commented, “We are really excited about all the possibilities that this creates for the School, and look forward to working with Professor Hancox on both regional and international projects.”
Professor Hancox has directed many orchestral and choral performances in the UK and Europe including some of the most challenging works in the choral repertoire and as a clarinet player has performed extensively throughout the UK, in Europe and the USA appearing amongst others with the Sacconi and Maggini String Quartets and the London Mozart Players.
Until March 2012, he was head of department and director of music at Canterbury Christ Church University having been made the first professor of music in Kent in 2000. Co-founding the Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health (2003) and forging a very special relationship between the university and the former master of the Queens Music, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies are two examples of many achievements whilst in post. He has a successful record of fund raising for research projects and for ensuring music is at the heart of any thriving healthy community.
As a Trustee of the Creative Foundation in Folkestone Professor Hancox has championed engagement in the arts as a means of social regeneration and since leaving Canterbury Christ Church University, founded the Canterbury Cantata Trust to emphasising the importance of group singing for all in the community and to encourage younger people to be involved with their communities through practical music activities. In 2010 he established Skylarks, a singing group for people with Parkinson’s, with groups in both Canterbury and London.
As part of the forthcoming 2015 Canterbury Festival, award winning artist and senior lecturer in Fine Art at the School of Music and Fine Art, Adam Chodzko, who was recently shortlisted for the prestigious Jarman Award, will be in conversation with Dr. Andy Birtwistle, Director of The Centre for Practice-Based Research in the Arts at Canterbury Christ Church University on Thursday 15 October, 5.30 – 6.30pm, in the Sidney Cooper Gallery, St Peter’s Street, Canterbury. Book here for In Conversation: http://www.canterburyfestival.co.uk/whats-on/visual-arts/adam-chodzko-in-conversation.aspx
Adam’s exhibition, Design for a Fold, commissioned by Arts Council England and Elephant Trust, will be at the gallery from 20 – 31 October 2015.
Adam Chodzko uses his art to explore the interactions and possibilities of human behaviour. His work investigates and invents the possibilities of collective imagination. Design for a Fold is a new installation created through Chodzko’s continued engagement with Kent and the people who form its communities. Proposing a new understanding of Kent, the viewer is invited to revisit these communities, creating new connections between shared spaces, collective mythology and imagination.
The Canterbury Festival is Kent’s International Arts Festival, attracting an audience of 60,000 people of all ages to over 200 free and ticketed events, drawn from across Kent, London and the South East. Every year festival fortnight includes a wide range of events, including Music, Theatre & Dance, Comedy, Science, Exhibitions, Walks and Talks.
Opening hours: Tue – Fri 10.30am – 5pm, Sat 11.30am – 5pm Address:Sidney Cooper Gallery, St Peter’s Street, Canterbury, CT1 2BQ Website:www.canterbury.ac.uk/sidney-cooper
(Exhibition dates: private view 15 Oct opens 16 Oct – 21 Nov) Contact the gallery for further details on gallery@canterbury.ac.uk or 01227 453267
Village Bay from above, Shona Illingworth, Lesions in the Landscape, 2015.
Lesions in the Landscape by UK/Danish artist Shona Illingworth, a Reader in Fine Art at the School of Music and Fine Art, University of Kent, is a powerful new multi-screen installation, exploring the impact of amnesia and the erasure of individual and cultural memory. Opening at FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) in Liverpool on 18 September 2015, the work tours to Sydney Australia, the Outer Hebrides, Scotland and finally to London, where there will be an international symposium in October 2016.
Revealing the devastating effects of amnesia on one woman and the striking parallels with the sudden evacuation of the inhabitants of St. Kilda in the North Atlantic in 1930, Lesions in the Landscape examines the profound effect and wider implications of memory loss on identity, space and the capacity to imagine the future. The exhibition is produced by FACT and is supported by an Arts Award from the Wellcome Trust, with additional support from University of Kent. For more information click here: http://www.fact.co.uk/projects/lesions-in-the-landscape.aspx
In collaboration with neuropsychologists Martin A. Conway and Catherine Loveday, Shona Illingworth has worked with and filmed Claire, who, following a trauma to her brain can no longer remember most of her past, create new memories or recognise anyone – not even herself. However the new sensory operated camera technology worn around her neck can help reactivate access to some of her ‘forgotten’ memories, in rare bursts of intense recollection.
The sudden end to Claire’s access to her memories echoes the evacuation of the inhabitants of the remote Scottish archipelago of St. Kilda on 29 August 1930, ending over 2,000 years of continuous habitation. Both mark an abrupt and irreversible lesion in a cultural landscape. Accessing or reconstructing the past is a process fraught with difficulty and both share a sense of isolation. They are both now the subject of scientific inquiry, St. Kilda as an outdoor laboratory for scientific investigation, a carefully preserved heritage site and a radar tracking station for complex military weapons testing, and Claire as the subject of a major neuropsychological study. And in each case, the past is continually constructed by others.
Stac Lee with gannets, Shona Illingworth, Lesions in the Landscape, 2015.
For the project, Shona took Claire to St. Kilda, where she filmed her in this intense landscape. The installation presents three video projections and an array of up to twenty loud speakers to create a fully immersive sound environment of voice, engineered and ambient sounds. They form a richly layered composition where the sounds of thousands of calling gannets is underscored by intermittent sounds of EEG signals which capture the desolate internal landscape of Claire’s amnesia as she struggles to search for her own memory of this environment.
An ongoing series of Amnesia Forums examine the politics of memory, amnesia and cultural erasure through discussion between invited artists, scientists, writers and researchers. This feeds directly into the Amnesia Museum, a growing body of works which map out the landscape of amnesia. It draws together film, photography, drawings and documents, and will be shown alongside the installation. Also included is a 32-speaker sonification of Claire’s EEG, as well as neuropsychological diagrams describing the impact of the lesion on her memory.
After premiering at FACT, Lesions in the Landscape will tour to the UNSW Galleries, Sydney, Australia, Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum and Art Gallery, Outer Hebrides and finally to Dilston Grove & CGP Gallery in London. An accompanying book will be published in autumn 2016.
On 6 November, 8am – 5.30pm, Shona will be a guest speaker at the Human Futures Forum: The Unchained Horizon: a day of interdisciplinary discussions, exploring the impact of technologies upon the changing contemporary understandings of place at FACT in Liverpool. See link for further details: http://www.fact.co.uk/whats-on/current/human-futures-forum-the-unchained-horizon.aspx
About Shona Illingworth
Born in Denmark in 1966, Shona Illingworth was brought up in the Highlands of Scotland. She trained at Goldsmith’s and is now based in London. She creates evocative video and sound installations that explore the experience of memory and the formation of identity in situations of social tension and trauma. Her work has been exhibited widely, including at the Museum of Modern Art, Bologna, the Wellcome Collection, London, the National Museum, Tirana and Interaccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, Toronto, screened at Whitechapel Gallery, London; Modern Art Oxford and Museum of Fine Art Lausanne and she has received commissions from Film and Video Umbrella, the Hayward Gallery, London and Channel 4 Television.
About FACT
FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) is the UK’s leading media arts centre, based in Liverpool and is focused on bringing people, art and technology together. FACT’s award-winning building houses three galleries, a café, bar and four cinema screens. Since the organisation was founded in 1988 (previously called Moviola), it has commissioned and presented over 250 new media and digital artworks from artists including Pipilotti Rist, Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Isaac Julien.
Previously featured in The Guardian as their Exhibition of the Week, Great Expectations, by international artist, Adam Chodzko, will be at the Guildhall Museum, Rochester High Street, until September 11th. Whitstable based Chodzko, whose work is exhibited extensively, and who was recently shortlisted for the prestigious Jarman Award, lectures at the School of Music and Fine Art. (Find out more here: https://www.kent.ac.uk/smfa/news.html?view=1486 )
The work was inspired by a series of enigmas surrounding the world’s most complete collection of 18th century tools. Revered by trade researchers and historians, the Seaton Tool Chest is considered by curators to be one of the Guildhall Museum’s most important artefacts. The large wooden cabinet houses the 200 tools that were a gift from cabinetmaker Joseph Seaton to his son Benjamin in 1796, who used the tools to make a beautiful cabinet to store them in, but never used them again. For artist Chodzko, this is the perfect symbol of acceptance and rejection between child and parent. His response, Great Expectations, re-imagines the chest as a conceptual art object transformed into a virtual entity or spaceship in a revolution instigated by the tools, weaving together past, present and future in a video (combining animation and documentary) and sculpture.
Now living in digital form, the tools narrate their history, a story of familial, social and cosmic joinery. They also claim to have made Ark Eye, a wooden sculptural object that has crash-landed from their digital universe into ours, to become a sci-fi museum curiosity.
Over a 6 month period, the work has also appeared in a DIY store, on a massive screen overlooking a busy bus station and car park, in the home of a traditional sign-writer, and within a school community, connecting public spaces in the Medway towns of Gillingham, Rochester and Chatham with the private interiors of home and school.
Great Expectations is the final commission in Hoodwink’s three-year programme of site-specific projects in the everyday places of Kent and can be experienced at The Guildhall Museum, Rochester, which is open 10am to 5pm, Tuesdays to Sundays, plus Mondays during the summer holidays from 27 July to 31 August. Tel 01634 332900 or email: guildhall.museum@medway.gov.uk
Inspired by a recent residency in the former mining town of Lens, Northern France, Time Pressure Decay /La Mort de L’Arbre, an exhibition by 2014 BA (Hons) Fine Art graduate Sophie Dixon, will be at Turner Contemporary & Crate Project Space, Bilton Square in High Street, Margate on August 15th and16th and also at [Dis]place, Hart’s Lane, London from August 22nd-23rd. Exploring memories of the coal mining industry and the physical traces left upon the landscape, Sophie Dixon works across video, writing and sound, drawing connections between seemingly disparate fragments of experience to examine the unifying power of memory. Resonating with the story of the Kent coalfield, this two day exhibition takes place between the Turner Contemporary and Crate Project Space in Margate. La Mort de L’Arbre (running time 15 minutes) will be screened over the weekend at the Turner Contemporary, accompanied by Time Pressure Decay, an exhibition of photography, text and research on display at the Crate Project Space.
Sophie Dixon’s work is rooted in extensive historical, social and cultural research. Concerned with the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction, she deconstructs and expands narratives to explore the tenuous relationship between ourselves and the environments in which we live. Using personal research and writing as a narrative backbone, her work is less interested in portraying a historic truth than in exploring the connections between events across time – an attempt to open up the spaces between the experience of an event, and our later interpretations of it. In 2014 she was awarded the CVAN Platform graduate award and has recently undertaken residencies with Mission Louvre-Lens Tourisme in Northern France and the UK based artists group Blast Theory.
Selected works from the 2015 Kent Degree Shows, featuring graduates of Canterbury Christ Church, University of Kent, University of the Creative Arts, and West Kent College, will be on show from August 11th – September 3rd at The Kaleidoscope Gallery, a contemporary exhibition space run by Kent Arts & Culture to showcase new and experimental work from local, established and emerging artists. The Kaleidoscope Gallery sits alongside the library and museum within the Sevenoaks Kaleidoscope Building, Buckhurst Lane, Sevenoaks TN13 1LQ.
Artists featured are Samantha Bale, Sandra Boxall, Ida Cholewinska, Rachel Dodson, Layla Moore, Tracy O’Donnell, Max Sheppard with the School of Music and Fine Art represented by Clarinda Tseand Eleanor Maher.
Please join us at the artists’ reception from 6 – 8pm on Thursday August 13.
The exhibition is free to visitors and is open during normal library opening hours Monday to Saturday.
