Announcing the University of Kent Medway Music Ensembles for 2018 – 2019. All University of Kent staff and students are welcome, plus members of the local community aged 18 years or above. All ensembles are based at The Galvanising Shop, Historic Dockyard Chatham.
Strings Workshop – Monday 12-1pm Pitch Slapped A Cappella – Monday 3-4pm World Percussion – Monday 5-6pm Little Big Band – Tuesday 4-5pm Sonority – Tuesday 5-6pm Chamber Music Forum – Wednesday 1-2pm Band Forum – Wednesday 2-3pm Sax & Flute – Wednesday 3-4pm Jazz Improvisation – Wednesday 4-5pm School Band – Wednesday 5-6pm University Chamber Ensemble – Wednesday 7-9pm Guitar Ensemble – Thursday 2-3pm Pop, Rock & Soul Choir – Friday 2-4pm
If interested in joining please email: oldsurgreception@kent.ac.uk. For some groups, it will be necessary to interview/audition and to attend every week.
SMFA music lecturer Anna Neale, multi-talented singer/songwriter, composer, session vocalist and voice-over artist, is now an officially elected member of the Songwriters Committee at the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA), the voice for music writers.
Anna has worked professionally in the music industry for over a decade. In that time she has toured the world, and has showcased at major music conferences across the globe and released two albums and two EP’s to critical acclaim. Related post: https://www.kent.ac.uk/smfa/news.html?view=2781
Professor Tim Howle, SMFA Professor of Contemporary Music has a new acousmatic piece premiered on 27th June in Bourges, France at the Art & Science Days Festival. False Memory of Normandy (2018) was composed in collaboration with the poet J M Fox. Link here: https://soundcloud.com/tim-howle/d-day
Additionally, Sarva Mangalam (2017), which was premiered at Electric Spring, at the University of Huddersfield earlier this year, is performed at the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival on July 17th. It is also being shown at the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), South Korea, 5-10th August. It is an audio-visual piece in collaboration with video maker Dr Nick Cope (https://nickcopefilm.com/) who currently holds an honorary position at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China. At its premiere, the performance was supported with a paper: Avoidance Strategies relating the ideas in the piece to those of Brian Eno and Cornelius Cardew at Ambient@40 held at the same time.
Further, Professor Howle’s piece Phantom Ride (2014) composed with Dr Paul Dibley from Oxford Brookes University, will be performed at ICMC and at WOW- soundMIGRATION, Madrid in September. Link to Phantom Ride: https://soundcloud.com/tim-howle/phantom-ride
The School of Music and Fine Art and new Centre for Music and Audio Technology are members of the Music Academic Partnership (MAP) – a ground breaking collaboration between a select number of educational institutions and the membership of UK Music, a campaigning and lobbying group which represents every part of the recorded and live music industry from artists, musicians, songwriters, composers, record labels, publishers, producers and music licensing groups. Its aim is to prepare individuals who want to build their careers in music.
Academic members, who have to be invited to become part of MAP, will benefit from this membership from a number of initiatives that include exclusive networking, collaborative research, a parliamentary programme, rehearsal spaces, and a range of student opportunities, including the BBC Introducing Pilot, MAP Music Technology Prize, access to exclusive Production Days and industry showcases.
SMFA’s Dr Ruth Herbert and Dr Rich Perks have been awarded a first prize of £3000 Humanities Faculty Teaching Prize 2018 for their innovations regarding music performance teaching at Kent. The award will constitute extra budget for the teaching on the programmes at SMFA.
The Panel considering the applications comprised Dr Simon Kirchin (Dean), Dr Montserrat Roser-i-Puig (Associate Dean, Education), Fran Beaton (UELT), Dr Vybarr Cregan-Reid (previous prize winner) and Rebecca Bailey (student representative).
In their feedback, the Panel referred to, “Sound pedagogical grounding and evidence of student improvement and engagement” with a “strong use of student feedback” and “particularly liked the reflective element of both the teaching strategy and the application”.
A music psychologist and performer, Dr Herbert is SMFA’s Lecturer in Contemporary and 20th Century Music Performance. Also a Lecturer in Music Performance at SMFA, Dr Perks has extensive live, studio and theatre experience in the commercial industry and has toured internationally with many accomplished artists.
Music Psychologist and performer, Dr Ruth Herbert, SMFA’s Lecturer in Contemporary and 20th Century Music Performance, has been invited to become a trustee of the National Youth Jazz Collective.
Founded in 2007, The NYJC supports the creative & educational needs of the young jazz musician, focusing on small group improvisation within a pathway of progression from beginners to young professionals, supporting music education to increase the ability of 8 – 18 year -olds to play by ear in small groups: to learn, improvise, compose, arrange and lead bands.
Commented Dr Herbert: “I am delighted to have been invited to be a trustee for National Youth Jazz Collective. At a time when arts provision (including music) is being sidelined to the point of extinction in schools, the roles of organisations like NYJC are a lifeline & incredibly important in sustaining music provision. NYJC are doing an amazing job of reaching out- through regional workshops across the UK, through their Summer School, and other initiatives – e.g. inclusivity, particularly getting more young women into jazz. Simply giving young people the time and space to connect/experience/understand loads of different musics and have a good time!”
Dr Paul Fretwell and Richard Lightman at the prestigious Ivor Novello Awards, 2018.
Fellow composers and SMFA Lecturers Dr Paul Fretwell, Head of School and Senior Lecturer in Music and Richard Lightman, Lecturer in Music, Director of Recruitment and Admissions, Director of Employability, Year in Industry Coordinator for SMFA and CMAT, attended the prestigious Ivor Novello Awards on Thursday 31st May at the Grosvenor House, Park Lane, London. The Ivors celebrate, honour and reward excellence in British and Irish songwriting and composing. Presented and judged by music creators they represent the pinnacle of musical achievement and peer recognition.
Commented Richard Lightman, “I was invited to attend the Ivor Novello Awards as a board member of the Council of Music Makers which includes BASCA, MPG, MMF, FAC, and the MU and in my capacity as a member of the Copyright Committee of UK Music advising the government on copyright issues and the impact of Brexit on the Music Industry. Both SMFA and the University of Kent’s new Centre for Music and Audio Technology are academic partners in BASCA’s educational scheme.”
Dr Aki Pasoulas performing with the MAAST, 2017. Photo by: A. Seddon
Dr Aki Pasoulas, Director of Programmes (Music), Director of Education, and Director of MAAST (Music and Audio Arts Sound Theatre) in the School of Music and Fine Art, has his electroacoustic composition Irides accepted in the peer-reviewed conference Sound & Music Computing (smc2018) with the general theme Sonic Crossings. The concert will be held in Limassol, Cyprus, between 4th and 7th July. Keynote speakers include reknowned composer Trevor Wishart. The website of the conference is http://smc2018.cut.ac.cy/index.html
Irides (which literally means rainbows), was premiered on 24 April 2017 at the Sound of Memory symposium at Goldsmiths Great Hall, London. It has been subsequently selected for performances at the ISSTA (Irish Sound Science and Technology Association) conference at Dundalk, Ireland, at the Sound/Image conference in London, at the ICMC2017 (International Computer Music Conference) in Shanghai, China, and at the Helicotrema festival in Venice, Italy, in a concert curated by Hildegard Westerkamp.
Aki Pasoulas is an electroacoustic composer, whose works are regularly performed worldwide.
On Tuesday July 17th, from 8pm, SMFA BA (Hons) Event and Experience Design 2011 graduate, Kerri Layton, is performing at legendary Pizza Express Cabaret venue, The Pheasantry (Chelsea), which was nominated for Best Live Music Venue in the London Lifestyle Awards, and considered to be one of London’s major venues of New York-style jazz-singing, musical-theatre-influenced cabaret work.
Kerri is enjoying a successful career as a performer with her live band and as a solo artist, and heads up independent record label Dixiebird Records, http://dixiebirdrecords.bigcartel.com/products which runs live music events all across the capital, featuring some of London’s finest musicians, as well as running her own Creative Event Consultancy.
Her E.P Songs For A Rainy Day is produced by bandleader, saxophonist and composer, Mick Foster and is due for release in July 2018.
The annual SMFAPostgraduate Presentations take place Wednesday 23rd May in the Galvanising Shop Performance Space at the campus on the Historic Dockyard Chatham. The Postgraduate Presentations are an excellent opportunity for SMFA to celebrate the successes of our postgraduates and the contribution they make to the life, work and academic community of the School.
The day will run from 10:30am – 3pm (approx. finishing time) and includes a range of presentations from students studying Music and Fine Art MA and PhD programmes, as well as a participatory tour of one of a Fine Art Degree Show piece from one of our MA Fine Art students.
The schedule is below:
10.40 Alan Stumpenhuson-Payne
PhD Music (Research) Canterbury Calling
11:00 Richard Lightman,
PhD Music and Technology Mediating Culture from the Producers View: Cultural Mediation between music producers.
11:30 Georgios Kyriakakis
PhD Music and Technology Terpsichore: A Software Music Interface for People with Mental Disabilities on the Autism Spectrum
12:00 Moyra Derby
PhD Fine Art Cross Cuts and Edits: Pictorial Attention Captured, Segmented and Dispersed
12:20 Lunch – Galvanising Shop Café
13:15 Michael Bonner
PhD Music (Research) How To Hit Yourself On The Head With A Mallet Safely
13:45 Andrea Hepworth
MA Music (Research) Music-evoked Autobiographical Memories (MEAMs) and the relationship to Nostalgia
13:55 Deborah Abbott
MA Fine Art The Portrayal of Disability in Art: Brain Matters
14:20 Olu Taiwo
MA Fine Art Access Memories 2 – Degree Show Artwork Tour
Olu will meet the audience at 14:10 in the Galvanising Shop Performance Space and take them to his Degree Show artwork. The tour of the piece starts at 14:20. Please contact mfapgradmin@kent.ac.uk for information on the location of the artwork if you are intending to go there directly for 14:20.
There will be an opportunity for the audience to ask questions after each presentation and a lunch will be provided for presenting students and audience members at which further discussion can take place.
