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February 2015

A scholar’s life

  Tom Harvey (year 2) provides a glimpse into the activities of Cantores Michaelis, the university choral scholars:  I auditioned for Cantores Michaelis late in my final year of school, not knowing yet whether I would get the grades to join that September. I was awarded the scholarship and this made me even more excited at the prospect of potentially becoming a student at Southampton. Continue reading →

One week, two operas

Dr Francesco Izzo (Senior Lecturer in Music) talks about recent opera productions: I go to the opera frequently, but the past week has been an especially exciting one. On Sunday, 8 February at the Frankfurt Opera, I had the opportunity to attend one of the rare modern performances of Antonio Cesti’s L’Orontea—one of the most successful operas of the mid seventeenth century. Continue reading →

Pianos on the high seas

Postgraduate researcher Anna Borg Cardona has uncovered maritime musical connections between Southampton and her home country of Malta: By 1814, Malta had become a British colony. British families soon began to settle on the Islands, accompanying army and navy personnel who were posted there. Some families transported their own musical instruments with them. Recognising potential commercial opportunities, merchants also began to establish a base on the Islands. Continue reading →

iChamps at The MuSoc Takeover

Music now has two new iChamps, Harry Matthews and Anna Kent-Muller, who are helping to spread new digital skills in the department.  Harry went to last week's jazz and pop gig at Talking Heads to get started on the work: Last Thursday MuSoc (the student music society) ran a night of live music performed by Southampton music students. The night’s music ranged from acoustic acts and jazz trios to funk/rock bands with large brass sections. Continue reading →

Finnissy and EXAUDI at the Wigmore Hall

Jeanice Brooks (Professor of Music) has been listening to a recent performance of work by Southampton colleagues and friends: Michael Finnissy's extraordinary Kelir for unaccompanied vocal ensemble was the highlight of a Wigmore Hall concert last Tuesday, broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. Kelir (1981) is the word for a curtain used for the shadows in Javanese puppet theatre. Its text is in Javanese, and consists of a ritual formula declaimed before the play begins. Continue reading →

Ensemble Fractales in Southampton

A special guest blog from Hannah Reardon-Smith, the flautist in Ensemble Fractales, who recently visited Southampton as part of a collaborative project with some of our PhD composers: Ensemble Fractales from the MaNaMa contemporary music master course in Ghent, Belgium, recently had the opportunity to visit the University of Southampton to work with three of the young composers there. Continue reading →

Starting to Share the Sound

Anna Stonehouse and Beth Hopkins (both year 2) have been working on a brand-new live music festival that will launch in March - save the dates!  Since September 2014 a committee of enthusiastic Jazz and Poppers have been creating an exciting new project called Share The Sound music festival. The festival will be held on Friday 13th March and Saturday 14th March in The Talking Heads pub in Southampton. Continue reading →