SMFA Music Lecturer Anna Neale elected to Songwriters Committee at BASCA

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.

BASCA campaigns in the UK, Europe and throughout the world and is the independent professional association representing music writers in all genres, from songwriting to media and contemporary classical to jazz.

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 SMFA article: https://www.kent.ac.uk/smfa/news.html?view=2781

SMFA and CMAT now members of the Music Academic Partnership

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 EED alumnus Chris Carr’s company Lucid Illusions chosen to create new area for 2018 Parklife

SMFA BA (Hons) Event and Experience Design (2010) alumnus Chris Carr’s company Lucid Illusions were chosen to create an amazing new area for the recent 2018 Parklife Festival called The Valley, which took place on 9-10 June at Heaton Park. They designed an enormous immersive stage set, influenced by brutalist architecture, dystopian film and Carnival, with integrated video and lighting.

Watch the Parklife Festival trailer.
Find out more about Lucid Illusions.

SMFA Music Lecturers win University of Kent Teaching Prize

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.

Extra tickets for Staff and Student Communications Conference – 4 Sept

Due to popular demand, we have added extra tickets for our first Staff and Student Communications on Tuesday 4 September 2018.

The conference is being hosted by Corporate Communications, from 9.00 – 14.00, in Keynes teaching foyer, seminar room and lecture theatre. Lunch will be provided.

If part of your job involves creating communications for colleagues and/or students at the University, this could be the conference for you! It will give you the chance to network with other professional communications colleagues at the University, share best practice and learn some new skills.

You will be able to:

hear from an external speaker who is an internal communications expert (name to be confirmed shortly!)
take part in a social media workshop
ask students and staff your communications questions
learn how Corporate Communications can support you.

Register now for the event via Eventbrite.

If you have any questions about the conference, please email communications@kent.ac.uk.

Resilience – A biopsychosocial model of health and wellbeing (Mental Health Awareness)

We are pleased to be able to offer sessions led by Psicon who are a local specialist in Psychology and Health Services.

Open to any member of staff who would like to increase their understanding of mental health awareness and managing personal resilience, the presentation-style sessions will provide a comprehensive blend of practical advice alongside an overview of underpinning theory and models to help participants gain a rounded understanding of managing mental health.

The sessions take place on:
6 July: 10.00-12.00 and 13.00-15.00 – Keynes Seminar Room 16

To book a place and to obtain further information, please visit Resilience – A biopsychosocial model of health and wellbeing (Mental Health Awareness) calendar.

Kent to host wine tasting day

Kent will be hosting a wine tasting day with Professor Vladimir Jiranek – Head of Department of Wine and Food Science at University of Adelaide (South Australia) – on Friday 6 July, 09.00 – 17.00.

Titled Wine 101: An introduction to winemaking, styles and evaluation, the one day course is perfect for novices and new enthusiasts who simply want to learn about the core concepts of wine, omitting the overly technical stuff in favour of understandable explanations.

Discover which grapes are used for each wine; how these grapes are grown and harvested; how they are processed in to red, white, sparkling and fortified styles; what effects the grape-growing and wine making have on the final product; what the basic appearances, tastes, aromas and flavours of different wines; and what these senses can tell you about the wine you are drinking.

The day will begin with an introductory talk, followed by a guided tasting journey through 25 different wines, during which a two-course lunch will be served. We will progressively build your wine recognition and evaluation throughout the day, leaving you with a familiarity of the attributes and faults with different wine varieties and styles.

The course fee is £114 and includes all tastings and a two course lunch in Dolche Vita.
Sign up here.
Attendees must be 18 or over.

Condolences for Ian Grigg-Spall

Former colleagues in the Law School and the wider University were saddened to learn of the death of Ian Grigg-Spall on Saturday 16 June 2018, one day short of his 75th birthday.

Ian was one of the first lecturers in law at the University, joining what was then the Board of Studies in Law in 1969. He was a mainstay and influential member of what became the Law School, until his eventual retirement in 2007. In that time he played a major role in the development of the distinctive critical orientation of the Law School at Kent, especially in relation to Marxist approaches to law. He also developed radically new approaches to teaching and research in Company Law, working closely with Professor Paddy Ireland, with whom he also edited the Critical Lawyers Handbook.

Ian was brought up in pre-independence Kenya, graduated with degrees from Cambridge and Harvard, where he was a Fulbright Scholar, and qualified as a solicitor with a city firm before joining Kent. He made frequent trips to Africa throughout his life, including a spell as a visiting academic at the University of Dar es Salaam. In later years at the Law School he focussed on promoting recruitment and very successfully expanded the School’s number of overseas students. This took him on many international trips to Africa and further afield, where he became a well-known figure on the international university recruitment circuit.

Ian had an intensely political sense of the role of law and legal education, and is remembered by students as an inspiring and engaging teacher. He was instrumental in founding and steering the Critical Lawyers Group at Kent for students, which eventually became a national organisation holding regular conferences with major figures from the legal profession and academia. He was deeply committed to the transformative power of legal education and was one of a group of colleagues who shaped the Law School in a way which enabled it to become arguably the leading critical law school in the country.

John Wightman, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences

The funeral will be at Barham at 11.20 on Wednesday 4 July, followed by a wake at Boughton Golf Club.

BLOCK circus and dance extravaganza – 20 and 22 June

On Wednesday 20 June (Medway) and Friday 22 June (Canterbury), join us for breathtaking performances to launch the Kent Festival of Dangerous Ideas.

Leading UK companies NoFit State Circus and Motionhouse bring together their unique styles in BLOCK, a powerful fusion of dance and circus that pushes the limits of both art forms. With its daring physicality, split-second timing and thrilling feats, BLOCK leaves audiences gasping.Twenty oversized blocks, fashioned to resemble giant concrete Jenga blocks, are deconstructed and reformed into an infinite variety of shapes for the performers to play on, move with and explore. BLOCK is about life in the city; its contradictions and challenges.

You may remember Motionhouse as the company who brought the dancing diggers to bOing! in 2015. They combine circus and dance to create spectacular, physical performances that have wowed crowds across the world. We are delighted to have them back at the University once again.

The performance times are:

Medway

12.15 (at staff BBQ)

Canterbury

13.30 (as part of the staff BBQ)
16.30 (open to all staff and public)

Everyone is welcome, and the 16.30 performance is open to all family and friends as well – so please spread the word. https://thegulbenkian.co.uk/event/block/

SMFA’s Dr Blanca Regina, Associate Lecturer in Event and Experience Design, performing in London on Friday 22 June at Iklectik

On Friday 22 June, as part of the ‘Unpredictable Series’ SMFA’s Dr Blanca Regina, Associate Lecturer in Event and Experience Design performs in an evening of audiovisual concerts at IKLECTIK in London, with internationally acclaimed artists Sculpture, Zan Lyons, and Noriko Okaku with special guest Steve Beresford.

Blanca Regina is an artist, curator, and tutor based in London who is currently involved in creating audiovisual performances, sound works, installations, and film. She has performed with numerous artists, including Leafcutter John, Steve Beresford, David Toop and Matthias Kispert, and curated a number of events and installations internationally.

A visiting research fellow at University of the Arts London, her research and practice encompass expanded cinema, free improvisation, moving image, photography and audiovisual performance. In 2010, she received a doctorate in Humanities from University Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, with the thesis The VJ and audiovisual performance: towards a radical aesthetic of postmodernism.

She is curator at the London-based Music Hackspace, Live Cinema Foundation and Strange Umbrellas. With Matthias Kispert she founded the Material Studies Group, developing a series of workshops and performances around the production of sound with everyday objects.

Get tickets for the event – £8 advance or £10 on the door.

Doors open at 19.00 for 20.00 start.