Calling all student, staff and alumni musicians at the University of Kent!

In the current situation, we are all having to find new ways to keep collaborative arts projects, such as rehearsing and performing music, alive – hence the Virtual Music Project!

Our first project is to put together a virtual performance of Vivaldi’s Gloria – and we want YOU to be involved! From wherever you are, we want you to record your instrumental or vocal part and send it, and we will build a virtual recording of everyone taking part.

You can find the choral scores to the piece via this document 

And the instrumental parts – violins, viola, cello, double bass, oboe, trumpet – via this document.

The Deputy Director of (virtual) Music, Dan Harding, will be making a recording of the harpsichord part and sending it out for people to listen to and play or sing along as they make their own audio recording. You will then be asked to upload your recording to a private folder, from which the final version will then be layered together.

So, what are you waiting for ?! Download your part now, start learning and practicing, and when the keyboard recording is available, rehearse with it, make and upload your recording, and we’ll put the finished version together. And if you can send a selfie of your making the recording too, from your living-room, kitchen, student flat, study, garden, wherever you are in the world, even better.

And don’t worry if your instrument isn’t involved in this first project: there’ll be more to come, including jazz and chamber repertoire, to get everyone making music.

Hope you are all looking after yourselves and each other at the moment, and taking the opportunity to keep practicing – the University of Kent Virtual Music Project is an opportunity to keep making music with each other, and will be with you wherever you may be!

Kent Law School is hosting a book launch and reception on Monday 23 March for two books: The Slave Trade, Abolition and the Long History of International Criminal Law and The Exclusionary Politics of Digital Financial Inclusion.

The Slave Trade, Abolition and the Long History of International Criminal Law, by Kent international law specialist Dr Emily Haslam offers a close and critical examination of litigation that arose from British efforts to capture slave ships in the nineteenth century. Drawing upon archival-based research, it explores the legal construction of so-called ‘recaptives’ (slaves found on board captured slave ships). The book argues that, notwithstanding its promise of freedom, the law actually constructed recaptives restrictively. Speakers for this book will be: Professor Michael Lobban (LSE) and Dr Christine Schwobel-Patel (University of Warwick).

The Exclusionary Politics of Digital Financial Inclusion, by Dr Serena Natile (Brunel University London), examines and critiques the narratives and institutions of digital financial inclusion as a development strategy for gender equality, arguing for a politics of redistribution to guide future digital financial inclusion projects. Speakers for this book will be: Dr Luis Eslava (Kent Law School) and Professor Kate Maclean (Birkbeck).

The book launch will be held from 4pm – 6.30pm in Eliot Senior Common Room. It is jointly hosted with the Law School by the Centre for Sexuality, Race and Gender Justice (SeRGJ), the Centre for Critical International Law (CeCIL) and the research group Social Critiques of Law (SoCRIL).

Nominations are open for the Kent Student Awards which recognise and celebrate the outstanding contribution students make to the Kent student experience.

Do you know an inspirational Kent student or group of students? Well why don’t you show your appreciation by nominating them for a Kent Student Award? The nomination deadline is 22 March.

There are 9 categories such as Outstanding Contribution to Student Voice, Outstanding Contribution to Media and the Arts and Outstanding Contribution to the Community.

The Kent Student Awards 2020 garden party awards ceremony takes place on Friday 29 May 2020.

Winners will receive a trophy, a brick in the ‘Footsteps Path’ and recognition of the achievement on their Higher Education Achievement Report.

The awards launched in 2014 and since 2018 has been co-led by Kent Union and the University of Kent.

Lisa Bayly, our MSc Applied Dental Professional Practice graduate signed up to the Smile Star Charity trip to India in February. The Smile Star charity helps those that have no or very limited access to dental and medical care.

Lisa told us: “Badiani hospital in Khambalia was our first venue. The Smile Star team was made up of volunteers: dentists, a doctor and the support team. We took our own equipment with us, so we had everything we needed to set up our clinical area in the main hall using waiting room chairs and a long table to lay out our dental equipment. That day, we saw over 180 patients.

Our second venue was in the Bhatia village hall. We were inundated with patients, some who had been in pain for days or weeks due to a lack of access to local or free dental care.

Day three, however, was our most humbling experience. We set up in Karamyog school in Jam Kalyanpur and were the first Western organisation to visit this place. The welcome we received was remarkable. Hundreds of people lined up with the Dholi drummers and dancers to welcome us. Truly humbled by the hospitality, we got to work for our busiest day yet. During three days we saw just under 1000 patients for dental or medical care, each one grateful for the care we gave and each filling our hearts for the Indian people a little more.

I would recommend others thinking about something like this to sign up for the Smile Star charity as it’s such a rewarding and humbling thing to be able to do.”

The Centre for Professional Practice offers flexible, part-time, work-related programmes and CPD courses for working professionals. To find out more visit Professional Practice.