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Successful Saxophonists!

Three Music students from the University of Southampton have been offered postgraduate places at leading UK conservatoires.  Wayne Hau, Laurence Astill and Emily Cox are all third years studying with Southampton’s inspirational classical saxophone teacher Dr Angela Space.  Between them they applied to five of the country’s top conservatoires. Wayne Hau, Laurence Astill and Emily Cox in their saxophone quartet MOMENTUM. Ali McDonough is the fourth member. Continue reading →

Popular Premiere

Associate Professor Matthew Shlomowitz tells us about a forthcoming premiere in his Popular Contexts series: In 2015 I composed a twenty-five minute work for the Norwegian percussionist Håkon Stene, commissioned by The Norwegian Programme for Artistic Research. The work is the eighth volume in my Popular Contexts series, which combine pre-recorded sounds with live instrumental music to investigate aspects of everyday and popular culture. Continue reading →

Improving Verses for Children

Concert at Chawton House, 11th December 2015 The performers: Lorna Beckett, Hannah Shilvock, Sabrina Beever & Archie Combe, gathered round the Stodart grand piano in the dining room at Chawton.   Our concert at Chawton went down well. It marked the 150th Anniversary of Edward Loder’s death by presenting some of his settings of Isaac Watts’s improving verses for children, best known today from their parodies in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland”. Continue reading →

Julian Joseph Workshop

The jazz pianist, composer and educator Julian Joseph shared his insights on a life in music with students from the music department of the University of Southampton and conducted a performance workshop prior to his “Julian Joseph’s Jazz legends” concert at Turner Sims on 27 November 2015. by Thomas Seltz. The post Julian Joseph Workshop appeared first on SOUNDINGS Music at Southampton. Continue reading →

The Hoosiers Session

Music finalist Jamie Wall reports on a collaboration between The Edge, SUSUtv and Music, bringing bands into the Music Department studios for live sessions to be broadcast on SUSUtv. From the start of this academic year I have been working alongside people from The Edge magazine (https://www.theedgesusu.co.uk/ ) and SUSUtv (www.susu.tv/ ) on a project called ‘The Edge Sessions’. Continue reading →

Liane Carroll Workshop

 Thomas Seltz, Head of Jazz and Pop, reports on a fantastic visit from Liane Carroll. The jazz pianist and singer Liane Carroll took to the stage with jazz and pop performance students on Friday 20 November 2015 for a workshop prior to her amazing performance in Turner Sims with Harvey Brough and the University of Southampton Voices in Songs in the Theme of Love. She covered areas of musicianship and performance relating to original compositions and jazz standards. Continue reading →

Nun-ology at the Brighton Early Music Festival

Professor of Music Laurie Stras reports on the Brighton Early Music Festival and exciting developments relating to her research – including a thoroughly modern approach to funding early music recordings. Over the last two weekends, I have been along the South Coast in Brighton, heavily involved in events at the Brighton Early Music Festival (http://bremf.org.uk). Continue reading →

In praise of opera

Recent alumnus Beth Coopey describes her surprise discovery of Opera during her studies, and how that changed  everything… I arrived at the University of Southampton with little interest in opera. I had sung a selection of arias but knew little about the operas from which they came. That soon changed: my opera experience here has been so immersive and wide-ranging that I am leaving as (probably!) a lifelong opera lover. Continue reading →

Bad Music in Oslo?

Can a piece of music can be inherently bad, or are all such judgements purely subjective? Associate Professor in Composition Matthew Shlomowitz reports on a recent premier in Oslo addressing such issues. I was commissioned by the Ultima Festival in Oslo to compose a forty-minute work for the Plus Minus Ensemble, a group I direct with English composer Joanna Bailie. For this commission I decided to do something different: instead of writing a piece, I wrote a ‘lecture-piece’. Continue reading →