Zoom For Thought

This episode of the Music Department's 'In Conversation' series features saxophonist with the Jools Holland Rhythm and Blues Orchestra, Phil Veacock, in discussion with director of the University Concert and Big Bands, Ian Swatman.  

From reflecting on early inspiration playing the recorder and school leading into playing the clarinet, Phil looks back on being inspired to take up the saxophone on seeing 2-Tone bands playing on 'Top of the Pops;' playing with 'The Larks' and turning down a recording contract; illicit vegetable snaffling in east Kent; joining the Jools Holland Rhythm and Blues Orchestra, playing on 'Wogan' and Chris Evans' 'Don't Forget Your Toothbrush' and the 'Hootenanny' revels; and, during COVID restrictions, finding alternative work as a delivery driver for the Charlton Bakehouse bakery.

In the second part of the interview with Hugh Huddy, part of the creative team behind Radio Lento and its weekly series of 'sound postcards from beautiful places,' Hugh reflects on listening to the skies over his back garden over lockdown when air traffic had been suspended; the impact of drone technology on environmental sound; the importance of listening in to other worlds; and the idea of structured listening to the environment compared to listening to music.

This week's episode is the first of several featuring Hugh Huddy, who, with his wife Madeleine, is the creative force behind Radio Lento, a podcast series presenting soundscapes recorded in the natural environment. From dawn chorus in the Forest of Dean to shingle beaches at Folkestone, each episode presents an immersive listening experience, offering, in Hugh's own words, 'weekly sound postcards from beautiful places.'

In this first episode, Hugh reflects on the challenges of recording the natural world; the concept of authenticity and being true to the practice of capturing the environment in sound, in single, unedited takes; and similarities between listening to soundscapes and to music, and the idea of defeating time.

Theme: Partita no.2 by JS Bach; Olivia Harris-Harding, violin

Our In Conversation series continues with pianist and festival artistic director, Libby Burgess.  

Pianist, chamber musician and accompanist, Libby's work has taken her to festivals and concert-halls around the country. She is also Artistic Director of the New Paths Festival, founded in 2016 and which takes place each spring in Beverley, and Co-Artistic Director of Beverley's own Chamber Music Festival.  

In this interview, Libby reflects on finding new ways to engage audiences for the New Paths Festival in light of the pandemic, her own responses as pianist and vocal coach, and looks ahead to her ' Bach Project48,' setting herself the ambitious challenge of playing all of Bach's 48 Preludes and Fugues in each of the forty-eight counties of England, and what effect playing the entire set in different venues throughout the country might have on her own relationship to the famed set.

This week's episode features Michelle Harris, a freelance mezzo-soprano and singing teacher at Canterbury Christ Church University and Senior and Junior King's School.

Michelle reflects on the technological requirements of adapting to teaching singing online, some unexpectedly positive aspects arising from recording singing lessons that allow them to become her own tool for self-evaluation, and the joys of teaching pupils from Canterbury to Belarusse and China - without having to leave her home.  She also considers the environmental and financial benefits of working from home, and how marshalling resources for online teaching has helped both teacher and pupil.

This week's episode features an interview with composer and performer, Anna Phoebe.

Anna has toured the world as a solo violinist, as well as with bands such as Roxy Music and Jethro Tull, in venues from the Royal Albert Hall and the Montreux Jazz Festival to the Moth Club. She reflects on the change from leading a busy life of touring, performing, composing and recording to adjusting to lockdown, and the new creative possibilities it affords. From missing live music, anxiety at the lack of government support, her search for a new equilibrium and writing music in response to her own fears and uncertainties, this is a remarkably candid and emotionally honest conversation from a fiercely creative musician.

Music: By The Sea by Anna Phoebe.

The series examining the impact of lockdown on teaching and learning, and music and performance, this week features Dr Oliver Double, Head of Popular Performance and Stand-Up Comedy in the School of Arts at the University of Kent.

Olly talks about the particular challenges faced in teaching stand-up comedy online and the relationship between performer and audience, the historical connections linking stand-up comedy with jazz and Dave Brubeck, and compering a comedy night online from home in the face of his sternest critic - his son, wielding the camera...

The first episode features a conversation with Bob Newport, Emeritus Professor of Materials Physics at the University of Kent.

In which we talk about finding creative ways of continuing to explore physics at home, engaging listeners during lockdown in both science and music, finding teaching tools within the home and grappling with the exciting unpredictably of a dodgy wifi signal...

"I'm an experimental scientist, after all: I should be good at putting odd things together,"