Dr Ruth Herbert, Lecturer in Music Performance, will perform with her trio Table Music at Schott Music, London on Friday 2 March 7.30pm – 9.30pm. They are joined by renowned jazz pianist Tim Richards and Ruth’s daughter Asha Parkinson (BBC Young Jazz Musician Award semi-finalist 2016) on soprano sax for an evening of music featuring contemporary, jazz and world influences, including commissioned works from Tim and Asha, plus music by Piazzolla and Zimmerli.

Formed early in 2017, and at core a piano trio, Table Music break new ground with a focus on new, recent and 20th century music displaying a rich mix of influences: contemporary classical, jazz and world, sometimes incorporating improvisation and other instruments. An album is planned for 2019.  More info https://www.tablemusic.co.uk/

As a professional pianist, Ruth has performed with various ensembles, notably recording soundtracks for silent films commissioned by the British Film Institute (BFI) with the piano trio Triptych, subsequently touring these works at major venues in the UK and USA (e.g. Barbican and Lincoln Centres).

Academic positions held include Head of Performance Studies at Dartington College of Arts and Lecturer in Music for the Open University. Prior to her appointment at Kent, Ruth held a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Faculty of Music, University of Oxford and a Junior Research Fellowship at Jesus College, Oxford.

For concert reservations, ring Schott Music: 0207 534 0710. Tick­ets: £10 (full-time stu­dents £5) https://schottmusiclondon.com/

SMFA Lecturer in Music Performance, Dr Ruth Herbert features in the Routledge Companion to Sounding Art (2017) which contains 36 essays that cover a variety of interdisciplinary approaches to studying sounding art from the fields of musicology, cultural studies, sound design, auditory culture, art history, and philosophy.

Her chapter, Sonic Subjectivities, compares subjective experiences of sounding art with informal everyday multimodal experiences of music – the way individuals customise mundane experience with music. It goes on to consider Experience Design and examine the faculty of imagination as a psychological given and evolutionary adaptation.

For more details go to https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Companion-to-Sounding-Art/Cobussen-Meelberg-Truax/p/book/9781138780613​

A music psychologist and performer, Ruth has diverse research interests in the fields of music in everyday life, music, health and wellbeing, music and consciousness, sonic studies and music education.

She is currently co-editing a volume for Oxford University Press on Music and Consciousness, together with Professor Eric Clarke (Oxford) and Professor David Clarke (Newcastle).  For more info on Ruth go to https://www.kent.ac.uk/smfa/staff/staff-profiles/musicandaudio/Herbert.html

School of Music and Fine Art Audio Electronics Lecturer, Dr. Sean Williams, was featured on a programme called Radio Controlled on BBC Radio 3 on Sunday February 11^th at 6:45pm with several other academics, talking about early experimental electronic music on West German radio in the 1950s.

Presented by Robert Worby, the programme tells the fascinating story of how post-war West German radio, and modern music, was conscripted to win the cultural cold war, often juggling political, economic and cultural forces outside of their control.

To listen to the programme go to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09r3qjb

Dr. Sean Williams is a researcher with a strong background in music practice. He has released a number of records on various labels in the UK, Europe and the USA, and performs solo and with groups including Grey Area, and the Monosynth Orchestra. For more info go to https://www.kent.ac.uk/smfa/staff/staff-profiles/musicandaudio/Williams.html

SMFA music lecturer Anna Neale-Widdison has released a new single Evolution which is available on all the usual music platforms such as Spotify and  iTunes. The video was filmed at the Historic Dockyard Chatham and Royal Dockyard Church, and featured University of Kent (Medway) students. It can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/GrWcMpNOMko

Evolution  is taken from Anna’s forthcoming album Wide Sky, due for release on the 23rd March, featuring performances from Syrian musicians and the members of the English National Opera (ENO) chorus. Fusing together Middle Eastern music with Western pop, and continuing the world music theme featured in her previous album River Man.

Anna is a multi-talented singer/songwriter, composer, session vocalist, and voice over artist, and has performed at most of the major music conferences, released two albums and two EP’s to critical acclaim, written songs for other artists, radio and TV advertising, and provided vocals for many TV animations, songs and adverts. As well as her composing and performing credits, Anna has lectured at the University of Cambridge, The British Museum, BIMM (Brighton & London), Canterbury Christ Church University and the University of Hertfordshire. She is also a member of the Oxford Brookes’s music industry board.  Her research interests include songwriting and the music of Ancient Greece.  More info here:  http://www.annaneale.net​