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Jon Gingell in Wonder.land

Jon Gingell teaches guitar at Southampton as well as working for the National Theatre and in many other high-profile freelance roles.  He is a Southampton Music graduate. I have been working as programmer and copyist at the National Theatre on the recent production of ‘Wonder.land’, a new musical based on Alice In Wonderland created by Rufus Norris, Moira Buffini and Damon Albarn. Continue reading →

Residency, reception and regions

Master's student Daisy Smeddle reports on the most recent Hartley Residency, a programme that brings leading scholars to Southampton to interact with our postgraduates and staff over several days:  Professor Katharine Ellis from the University of Bristol is amongst the most esteemed musicologists of her generation. We were lucky enough to spend 2nd – 3rd of February exploring and discussing her current research fields with her. Continue reading →

Conductus III

Professor Mark Everist has been leading the ‘Cantum pulcriorem invenire’ (CPI) project at the University of Southampton since 2010; it has brought to life the repertory of twelfth- and thirteenth-century poetry and music – known as the conductus – through research, performance and recording. Continue reading →

Danzón in Mexico Week

As part of the University of Southampton’s, ‘Mexico Week’ in November 2015, a danzón workshop was held at Turner Sims, organised by the University’s Music department and led by danzón expert Dr Hettie Malcomson. Danzón is a popular form of Cuban and Mexican dance and music, and a precursor to modern styles such as the mambo and the cha-cha-chá. Continue reading →

And so it begins…

Catherine Pope, Professor of Medical Sociology, tells us about her experiences with the University's community choir: January 2016. And so it begins… a cheery email entitled ‘Hello ALL’ from the music-community-choir email list, but actually from Harvey Brough our esteemed and energetic Turner Sims Professor of Music. Continue reading →

Dark Music Days in Reykjavik

Georgia Browne teaches flute in the music department at Southampton University. She is a specialist in historical flute performance and is a member of a Icelandic ensemble Nordic Affect who perform new music on old instruments. Here she reports on their latest venture: On 31 January Nordic Affect take to the stage at the international new music festival Dark Music Days in Reykjavjik, Iceland, where the ensemble is based. Continue reading →

A week with David Owen Norris

David Owen Norris, Professor of Music and Head of Keyboard and Percussion Studies,  gives us a round up of a week's wide-ranging activities... Some interesting coaching this week - the Banks String Quartet at the Royal College of Music in Frank Bridge's 1907 student piece, the quartet in B flat, for the Bridge Study Day, where my fellow contributors included Fabian Huss, Lewis Foreman, Anthony Payne and Stephen Banfield. Continue reading →

New recording for old flutes

The Renaissance flute consort Zephyrus Flutes, under the direction of Nancy Hadden, has just released their latest CD, Aux Plaisirs, aux Delices Bergeres.   This is the second in a series of French music for Renaissance flutes, based on research that Nancy completed during her AHRC Fellowship in the Creative and Performing Arts at Southampton. The recording highlights the unique sound of the early modern flute. Continue reading →

The New Four Seasons

Jane Chapman, renowned harpsichordist and Turner Sims Fellow, tells us about her latest adventure... I'm just about to go on tour with Nigel Kennedy playing his whacky version of the 4 Seasons and other sundries. I'm doubling on harpsichord and piano, and the score has been translated from figured bass into jazz  chords. Who knows if Vivaldi was around today, he may have written it that way. Continue reading →

A New Mozart Completion

A fragment of an Oboe Concerto by Mozart has been completed by William Drabkin, Emeritus Professor of Music, and published by the Music Haven (London) in full score and, very recently, in an arrangement for oboe and piano. Mozart’s manuscript, in the Fitzwilliam Library, Cambridge, comprises about 70 bars of a first movement in F major, including the complete opening orchestral ritornello. Continue reading →

The Trembling Line – closing this week

If you haven't yet had a chance to go over to the university's John Hansard Gallery to experience Aura Satz's wonderful show, The Trembling Line, now is the moment! The show closes on 23 January. The centrepiece of the show is The Trembling Line, which Aura Satz completed during her Leverhulme Trust-funded residency at Southampton.  The piece features a score by Music's Dr Leo Grant, and uses an innovative spherical speaker array designed by the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research. Continue reading →

Share the Sound (2016)

Following last year’s huge success, we are all very excited to announce the return of Share The Sound Festival (2016). If you were involved with, or attended the event in March 2015, you will of course be itching to know who will be playing at our next musical extravaganza. If however you haven’t heard about us yet – here’s all you need to know. Continue reading →

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, Laurence and Emily all received offers to study Masters in Performance. 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 →