Upcoming events

19 01 2012, Practising Performance programme
10 a.m. to 12 p.m., West Road Concert Hall
As part of the continuing Practising Performance programme conductor/director/keyboard player Richard Egarr will be taking a masterclass for instrumentalists (chamber groups preferred) in the Concert Hall.

There are also opportunities for string players to participate in the Academy of Ancient Music Side-by-side workshop on Corelli concerti grossi (at A440) in the afternoon.

Details of the Faculty’s Colloqium Series can be found here.

Recent Music Faculty events

Workshops and masterclasses

24 11 11, Conductors’ forum with Sir Roger Norrington
2.30 p.m. – 4.30 p.m., Recital Room, Faculty of Music.
The conductor Sir Roger Norrington will be taking a conductors’ forum in which he will discuss with student conductors the process of preparing/rehearsing and performing as a conductor. The class is open to non-conductors who wish to observe.

30 11 11 Leslie Howard Lecture-Recital
12.30 p.m. West Road Concert Hall.
Renowned Liszt pianist and scholar Leslie Howard will present a lecture-recital on Liszt’s great piano cycle Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses (completed in 1847). The cycle, which includes recognised masterworks such as Bénédiction de Dieu dans la Solitude alongside neglected pieces such as Cantique d’amour, represents a unique and wholly Lisztian mixture of the Romantic and the religious. Several of the pieces have been through numerous revisions and transformations, as was customary with Liszt; Leslie Howard’s lecture-recital on the genesis of the cycle will therefore be of great interest to musicologists as well as to students of the piano and Liszt devotees. Admission to the lecture-recital, which will last approximately 90 minutes, will be free of charge.

The event will take place as a collaboration between the Faculty of Music and the Cambridge Liszt Festival 2011, a year-long festival celebrating Liszt’s bicentenary with a wide range of Cambridge-based events. The Festival Director, Dr Conor Farrington, is a Research Associate at Jesus College, Cambridge and the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. Details of the Festival can be seen on Facebook and at the Festival website

28 10 11 Hearing the Word
A workshop on intelligibility in sung texts with Edward Wickham, Ian Cross and Sarah Hawkins (Cambridge), Christopher Fox (Brunel) and members of The Clerks (vocal ensemble). A new work by Edward Wickham and Christopher Fox: Roger go to yellow three … was performed that evening.

Cambridge University New Music Ensemble

23 11 2011, 8 p.m. – 9.30 p.m., Kettle’s Yard
Concert programmed and directed by Mark Gotham, including music by Dallapicoola and other 20th and 21st Century composers mixed with student compositions.

22 10 2011, 6.30, 8.00
Recital of Music for Cello and Electronics in the Robin Orr Recital Room, Faculty of Music
Oliver Coates – Cello
Jonathan Green – Electronics
Works by Harvey, Lachenmann and 3 new pieces by student composers: James Welland, Lawrence Dunn and Oscar Dub

Concert for Robin Holloway

12 11 2011, 6 p.m. West Road Concert Hall: Robin Holloway retirement concert.
A performance of Robin’s Gilded Goldbergs by Huw Watkins and Ryan Wigglesworth followed by a reception.

Outreach events Michaelmas Term 2011:

Festival of Ideas

• 16/10/11 Dark Sun: a Community project, West Road Concert Hall Stephen Montague, Composer of “Dark Sun- August 1945” will run a rehearsal day for this piece, supported by student conductors at West Road Concert Hall. The piece was written in memory of the victims and survivors of the Hiroshima bombing in 1945 and is scored for a large flexible ensemble that can accommodate performers on all instruments, singers and includes parts written for wine glasses, CD players and hand held percussion for any participants that don’t play an instrument or sing.
• 20/10/11- Dark Sun Concert, 8 p.m. West Road Concert Hall
• 21/10/11- Schools Concert, Peter and the Wolf, 1.15 p.m. West Road Concert Hall This special performance for schools and families will draw on the talents of Cambridge University musicians. The performance will be conducted by Harry Ogg, narrated by Oskar McCarthy and a new set of graphics will be designed and displayed by Daniel Strange to help bring the performance to life.
• 22/10/11- 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., West Road Concert Hall Family Music Day, Performances and workshops for all ages. Workshops, performances, musical storytelling and more! The Faculty of Music is opening its doors for a fun-packed day of music sessions for all ages to enjoy.
• 24/10/11- Access all archives: Sights and Sounds
  In this special late night opening of five of the University Museums, live performances and sound installations sit side by side lighting effects, DJs and more to offer the audience a unique musical experience inspired by the exhibits themselves. Composers, musicians and museum staff are working together to create a site specific experience in each of the five museums, that pairs performances of specially composed works, improvisation and well known repertoire with the atmosphere in the galleries themselves. One ticket allows access to all five sites throughout the evening. Five museums will be participating: Scott Polar, Sedgwick, Whipple, Zoology and the Fitzwilliam. Student composers/musicians include Joe Snape, Lawrence Dunn, Oscar Dub, James Brady, Anthony Friend and Joe Bates.

Full details about all of the above Festival events can be viewed here.

Archive of previous Music Faculty events

Performance

Practising Performance series:

25 01 11: Stephen Isserlis workshop and Cambridge University Collegium Musicum (CUCM)/Academy of Ancient Music Side-by-Side event, organised by Margaret Faultless in collaboration with the AAM. Workshop on Bach’s first orchestral suite.

14 02 11: Performance class/workshop with harpsichordist, Ketil Haugsand, organised by Margaret Faultless in West Road Concert Hall.

29 04 11: Mozart’s Piano Concerto K413, a workshop organised by Margaret Faultless with scholar and performer John Irving.

23 03 11: Yundi Li Chopin masterclass, organised by John Rink. Yundi worked with three student pianists in sessions of 40 minutes each. The afternoon ended with an hour-long ‘Musical Dialogue’ with John Rink.

New Music

02 03 11: Cambridge New Music Ensemble concert, Kettle’s Yard. An evening of Stephen Montague’s piano and chamber music played by Montague/Mead Piano Plus with the Cambridge New Music Ensemble and the composer running live electronics.

27 04 11 Free Composition Concert, Great Hall, King’s College. Works for submission in this year’s examinations performed by the New Music Ensemble with other guests.

30 04 11 & 01 05 11 Clare Cellars Event Premieres of ‘6 Bigoted Partsongs’ by William Marsey, and ‘Unknown Position’, a chamber opera by Kate Whitley.

Cambridge University Collegium Musicum (CUCM)

22 05 11: Cambridge University Collegium Musicum (CUCM) The completion of the Bach Brandenburg project. Performances in Girton Chapel 2.30 p.m. and Sidney Sussex Chapel. Concerti numbers 3, 4 and 6, with the concerto for oboe d’amore (soloist Robert de Bree). Directed by Margaret Faultless.

Bach Brandenburg project. Throughout the year all six concerti to be rehearsed and performed.

06 02 11: Brandenburg Concerti nos. 1, 2 and 5 performed at Girton and Selwyn. Directed by Margaret Faultless.

15 02 11: Birds, Beasts and Battles Dramatic music depicting farmyard to the battle ground by Biber, Farina, and Schmeltzer. Directed by Margaret Faultless.

10 03 11 and 13 03 11 Bach B Minor Mass in St John’s College Chapel and Girton College Hall. Conductor Martin Ennis.

Cambridge Handel Opera

03 – 07 05 11 Cambridge Handel Opera fully-staged production of Handel’s opera Agrippina in the West Road Concert Hall plus a Study Day on Saturday 7 May with speakers including Prof Robin Osborne (King’s College Cambridge), Prof David Kimbell (formerly Professor of Music at University of Edinburgh) and Christine Botes (the Stage Director of Agrippina). Many members of CUCM played in the opera.

Composition

31 01 11 Britten Sinfonia Composers’ Workshop An ensemble of 8 musicians, four professionals from the Britten Sinfonia and four of the Faculty’s student players, workshopped six student compositions. The discussions were led by the composer Colin Matthews.

Outreach

2010-11

• Gifted and Talented Masterclass in Composition with Stephen Montague
• Gifted and Talented Masterclass (Wind players) with the Britten Sinfonia
• Snowman tour with student participants from inside and outside Faculty, visited 11 primary schools in 3 days, 2,285 school children saw the production.
• Elderly Action group Christmas Party,13 January 2011
• Higher Education music Taster Day, 2 February 2011
• E-Mentor composition project
• Opera Education Project, 11 February 2011 workshops for 55 year 10 and 11 students with CUOS
  Higher Education Taster Days, 16 February and 2 March 2011
• Gifted and Talented Composition Masterclass, 21 February 2011
• Half term Music Club, 22 February 2011, Brown Fields Community Centre.
• Follow up from Taster Days with applicant advice, 12 March 2011
• Girton Primary Schools workshops on the B Minor Mass 17 March 2011
• The Mathematics of Jazz, Good Vibrations, 19 March 2011 – Music and Mathematics show for University Science Festival.

Science Museum residency Lent Term 2011. PhD student Michelle Phillips was one of five scientists accepted to undertake a nine-week residency at the Science Museum, London, as part of the ‘Live Science’ project in the ‘Who Am I?’ gallery. From 17th January to 17th March 2011, 886 museum visitors took part in a series of experiments designed to explore the effects of music listening on experience of elapsed duration.

Lectures

13-18 May 2011 Humanitas Visiting Professorship in Chamber Music: Professor Alfred Brendel

Lecture 1: Alfred Brendel on Character in Music
5pm, Friday 13 May 2011

Lecture 2: Alfred Brendel on Light and Shade of Interpretation
5pm, Monday 16 May 2011

Open Rehearsal with Alfred Brendel and Szymanowski Quartet
2-5pm, Tuesday 17 May 2011

Concert by Szymanowski Quartet
18 May 2011
Haydn: Quartet in C major Op. 76 No. 3 (Hob. III:77): Kaiserquartett
Szymanowski: Quartet No. 2, Op. 56
Beethoven: Quartet in A minor Op. 132

Wort Lecture Series, Ingrid Monson (Quincy Jones Professor of African American Music, Harvard University) 4 lectures October 2010 and March 2011:
1) Being Musical and Other Dilemmas
2) Mali’s Neba Solo: Music from an African Village in the Digital Age
3) On the Sensory Turn in Musical Inquiry
4) Race and Music in the 21st Century

16 02 11 Inaugural lecture by Prof John Rink entitled The Practice of Performance Studies.