I`m delighted to share the news that myself and my colleague Dr Tom Armstrong have received an award under the British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grants scheme for our project entitled `Musical Pairs: Composers, their Partners and Creativity`.
We will be interviewing a series of British composers and their partners, publishing the interview transcripts on a dedicated project website, co-authoring journal articles, holding a one-day research workshop at @surreydmm @uniofsurrey with invited participants, and presenting our findings at multiple international conferences. Watch this space for more information!
We`re really thrilled to have received this award; having had our first conversation about a possible research collaboration on a train to London 11 years ago, it has been a long time coming to fruition!
This pleasing but unexpected news appeared in my inbox earlier today. For anybody who thinks that a total of 5,000 reads is no big deal, you`re absolutely right (one of my articles has accrued over 5,000 reads on its own so far this year).
The below refers only to one specific platform for accessing my research outputs, and I`m particularly heartened since I don`t actually use @researchgate_official myself – although I`m most grateful to whomever at the @uniofsurrey has been managing my profile for me!
For the end of the month, here`s a quick throwback to the cover song performance assessments for my first-year popular music module at @surreydmm @uniofsurrey, which took place in May.
Several of these musicians have since released original music on major music platforms. These include `In Ctrl` by @amofficial.mp3, released two weeks ago on Spotify, featuring five Surrey music students (four of them pictured here): https://open.spotify.com/track/6BXOpvtlz9o03smNJJ8vLo @aj_supp @itsangel.wav @jake.r.h.m @b.noah327 @yamanneng
In addition, earlier in the month our music student @dina_grace_official released her new single `Breathe` on Spotify, written at the end of her first year at university in celebration of the new friends she had made, and recorded in collaboration with five other Music and Media students: https://open.spotify.com/track/6oCpMCURvyGStMMjZZHLwL @callum_.mp3 @aj_musicbeats @clumbum.music @_franic @eva.sophie.w
Many congratulations to all our wonderfully talented students and graduates! That’s a huge amount of exciting and high-quality musical activity in a very short space of time – and I know there’s more just around the corner, so watch this space!
This comes just two years after Ryan`s show THE WHITE ROSE: THE MUSICAL, for which he was both composer and co-bookwriter, enjoyed a sold-out run in London as well as a separate production at ACT Theatre, Kingston. Its singing director and two of the pit band musicians were also graduates of @surreydmm.
The National Student Survey 2026 results were released last week.
@surreydmm scored exceptionally well again this year, with an overall satisfaction rating of 89.8%.
We scored higher than both the institutional and the national sector average in EVERY area of the survey (Students` Union excepted).
Our results place us nationally as follows:
#5 for Others in Technology – Music and Sound Recording (Tonmeister) @tonmeister_surrey
#9 for Cinematics and photography – Film Production and Broadcast Engineering @filmeng_surrey
#15 for Music – Music and Creative Music Technology
The @uniofsurrey itself is ranked 7th in the UK, above EVERY Russell Group university, with an overall student satisfaction score of 87.7%.
The University has also been in the Top 15 every year for the last 5 years running, showing a remarkable level of consistency.
I`d like to thank all the wonderful, dedicated staff in Music and Media for all their hard work this year in sustaining excellence in learning, teaching, and student satisfaction across our entire degree portfolio. It is an honour to serve you as Head.
There have been some exciting releases of new music by @surreydmm and @uniofsurrey artists in the last couple of weeks!
@emilierowley, who has just completed year 2 of her BMus Music degree, has released her debut EP, "Flow State", on Spotify and Apple Music on 28 June. The links are as follows:
A total of six @surreydmm Music and Media students were involved in the recording as musicians and sound engineers, demonstrating the unique value of studying Music at the @uniofsurrey, home of the world-leading @tonmeister_surrey degree. @surreystudent
This EP release follows Emilie`s successful gig at the @boileroom, Guildford with fellow @surreydmm student @stephanie.tite the previous week.
Elsewhere, Surrey music alumni @kym_jasmin5 has released two singles, "Lovely Jo" and "Friends with U" across platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube, both featuring friend of @surreydmm, @phoebesings91 who sings in the University Choir and University Chamber Choir. @surreyalumni
Kym tells me that "Lovely Jo" is influenced by the 1960s French pop of artists like Francoise Hardy, as well as the colourful pastoral textures of bands such as The Beatles and The Kinks c.1967. The song is about a friendship that fired the imagination, but was in retrospect, insincere, artificial, and one-sided.
"Friends with U" is the sequel song to "Lovely Jo"and is written from an imagined opposing point of view, which tells the other side of the story. Here are the links:
Watch out for imminent further releases from our talented @surreydmm students, including a new single "In Ctrl" by @amofficial.mp3 this Thursday as well as a forthcoming EP by @the_billings.uk!
Another amazing graduation ceremony, another welcome reminder of our incredible students in @surreydmm, their wonderful achievements across the three or four years of their programme, and how they`ve flourished and grown as individuals during that time under the expert tutelage of our staff. Congratulations to all of you!
@uniofsurrey graduations are always truly a day to remember, providing treasured memories for students and staff alike. It`s little wonder that in the National Student Survey 2026, the results of which were released earlier this week, the University ranked 7th in the UK for overall student satisfaction (measured by % positivity based on Q1-24 for all institutions listed in the Guardian University Guide league tables), above the entirety of the Russell Group. Seventh in the UK!
We`ve enjoyed strong NSS results in Music and Media again this year as well, and no doubt I`ll post more about that in due course. But back to today`s graduation: here`s a picture of me photobombing some of our BMus Music graduands on the steps of PATS Building, just before the customary hat-throwing took place. @surreystudent @surreyalumni
It`s graduation day for students of Music, Creative Music Technology, @tonmeister_surrey and @filmeng_surrey from @surreydmm at the @uniofsurrey!
Every graduation, I share an informal message to our wonderful graduands, wishing them congratulations on their special day and all the very best for the future. @surreystudent @surreyalumni
So here`s me having some fun on one of those oversized deckchairs that has become fashionable at UK universities recently, against the backdrop of PATS building (home of @surreydmm) and the PATS marquee.
Happy graduation and congratulations to all the graduands!
It was a huge honour to have contributed to Episode 2 of the exciting new `Bronze Ceiling` podcast series on sites of feminist memory in the UK, launched today on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Deezer as part of the Herstory Maps project.
Many congratulations to the podcast`s excellent host Marc Calvini-Lefebvre and producer Blanche Plaquevent of Aix-Marseille University, France for all their researching, writing, and editing.
At the Learning & Teaching Forum hosted by @surreydmm at the @uniofsurrey earlier today, I gave a presentation reporting back on a pilot project at the University that I`ve been involved with this year embedding chatbots in our VLE, SurreyLearn. I also discussed my embedding of Generative AI within my teaching this year as well as within innovative assessed patchwork text and lectio divina assessments on my modules.
In addition, I contributed a poster presentation reporting back on a big music performance event I organised last November to showcase the research and teaching undertaken in @surreydmm.
I`m just sharing some welcome news from earlier in the week. I often rank second or third most read in my department on @researchgate_official – but sometimes, as in this past week, I hit the jackpot and my contributions are the most read!
Of course, the number of people engaging with research isn`t an indication of its quality, so much as its popularity (and one possible measure of impact and influence). Plus I don`t know how many of my colleagues use ResearchGate and how much of their work is available there.
To be fair, I don`t upload any of my work there either; somebody at the @uniofsurrey and/or @surreydmm must be managing this aspect of my profile on my behalf. Thank you to whomever it is!
For the University Open Day earlier today at the @uniofsurrey, @surreydmm was invited to provide live music to precede the main `Why Surrey?` welcome talks delivered by my colleague @tom_turner77 throughout the day.
Myself plus @mhyeung_1113 (first-year BMus Creative Music Technology), Cam`ron Pindi (first-year BMus Music), and @teo.rn (just graduated from MA Film, Animation, and Digital Arts) formed a quartet of oboe, violin, viola, and cello and performed five 15-minute sets of arrangements of classical music, popular music, and musical theatre numbers to entertain the University`s visitors and prospective students. @surreyalumni
It was an honour to have given such visibility to the vibrant @surreystudent musical life at the University of Surrey and to represent its music ensembles and @surreyunion music societies, as well as to illustrate the strong relationship between students and staff that enhances and enriches its culture of learning.
The final @surreydmm University Orchestra concert of the year took place at University Hall on campus at the @uniofsurrey last weekend. It`s always a bittersweet event: not just a fantastic concert and the culmination our vibrant programme of c.70 events per academic year, but also the one at which we say farewell to some of our wonderful students who have come to the end of their degrees.
Saturday`s concert was no exception. The orchestra played very well in a programme of Chabrier`s España, Sibelius`s Karelia Suite, and Sibelius`s Symphony No. 1. The Karelia Suite was conducted impressively by one of our graduating students, @jess.townson (the remainder of the concert was conducted by our Head of Conducting, Russell Keable). As principal oboe/cor anglais, I also said a fond goodbye to the second oboe I`ve been working alongside for the past four years, as well as several others whose journeys throughout their entire degree I`ve had the privilege to share. @surreystudent @surreyalumni
Congratulations to everybody involved in yesterday`s Band Night at @surreydmm @uniofsurrey!
The evening featured seven student bands each presenting a three-song set: A.M, Aralia, The Billings, Dina Grace, Jasmine 7, Kill the Canary, and The Straz.
Watch out for releases from several of these bands in the coming weeks!
Many thanks in particular to Surrey graduate @kym_jasmin5 for organising the event.
The year`s student events calendar is completed by JazzO (the University Jazz Orchestra) this evening in Studio 1, and University Orchestra tomorrow evening in University Hall.
Thursday 4 June, 8pm (doors 7:30pm) PATS Studio 1, Stag Hill campus, University of Surrey Free entry
Seven student bands – A.M, Aralia, The Billings, Dina Grace, Jasmine 7, Kill the Canary, and The Straz – will be bringing their diverse and eclectic styles of music to PATS Studio 1, to celebrate the end of the academic year. Come and join us!
Excellent annual Degree Show for our BEng Film Production and Broadcast Engineering @filmeng_surrey programme earlier today at @surreydmm @uniofsurrey, at which the final-year cohort presented their films to an audience of some 100 invited students, staff, and industry executives. @surreystudent @surreyalumni
The films shown comprised extended highlights edited from the fantastic @strictlycomesurrey 2026 (celebrating 10 years of the broadcast) earlier in the year, as well as four student productions including one inspired by a Norse myth and another by a Margaret Atwood poem, ending with a behind the scenes documentary giving us some insights into the making of the films.
Many congratulations to all the students, seen here alongside Programme Leader Alan Haigh and lecturers Susan Pratt, Andy Gilbert, and Femi Adeyemi-Ejeye.
A series of fantastic concerts yesterday at the Church of St Martha-on-the-Hill, Guildford included one given by some of our excellent @surreydmm music performance students.
Arthur Chan (violin), @jam3s_bateman (piano), @chinyu_ho (flute), @hayleylibbrecht (clarinet), @seth.nel_ (cello), @theohosking (piano), @calum_ccc (marimba), and @charlotte.ray11 (flute) gave up their Bank Holiday Monday to bring their beautiful classical music to the local community and a very appreciative audience.
What`s more, several of the above returned to the @uniofsurrey that evening for Orchestra rehearsal! The concert is a week on Saturday (6 June, 7:30pm, University Hall) so we did need to meet, even on a Bank Holiday and at one of the busiest times of year for student assessments.
Many congratulations to everybody involved, and to the amazing Margaret Roberts for organising the concert – as well as accompanying several of the performers at the piano! It was great to see students and alumni including @inspectorjshaw, @stephanie.tite, and @teo.rn in the audience as well.
UNIVERSITY OF SURREY BAND NIGHT LINE-UP NOW ANNOUNCED
Thursday 4 June Doors open 7:30pm PATS Studio 1, Stag Hill campus, University of Surrey Free entry
Seven student bands – A.M, Aralia, The Billings, Dina Grace, Jasmine 7, Kill the Canary, and The Straz – will be bringing their diverse and eclectic styles of music to PATS Studio 1, to celebrate the end of the academic year.
Come and join us on Thursday 4 June for the final student pop concert of the academic year! Doors open 7:30pm, free entry.
A few photos of the @ussu.stringorchestra at their concert last Friday at @surreydmm @uniofsurrey. Thank you for letting me join on viola! Congratulations to outgoing president/conductor @jess.townson on a successful and inspiring year. @surreystudent
Last week was my busiest of the academic year yet: 11 assessed revision seminars with the first years, using lectio divina; 9 final-year recitals and 6 band performance assessments, which I organised as well as examining; hosting our annual Benefactors` Concert on Wednesday; some instrumental tuition for @guildfordschoolofacting; joining String Orchestra for Ensembles Concert on Friday; and playing principal oboe in last night`s performance of Smyth`s Mass in D!
No doubt I`ll post separately with further thoughts about one or two of the above in due course. Right now I`ve been enjoying a day off before my return to the office tomorrow.
Many congratulations to everybody involved in tonight`s performance of Ethel Smyth`s Mass in D at St Cyprian`s Church, Clarence Gate, London presented by Six Centuries Chamber Choir and South London Sinfonietta, conducted by @peterfendercomposer with Helen Semple (soprano), @itslydiashariff (mezzo-soprano), John Upperton (tenor), and Jim Clements (baritone).
The performance was very fine, and really did the music justice; the vocal soloists sang delightfully and Dame Ethel would definitely have been proud. It`s a beautiful piece with many expressive and dramatic moments, and I genuinely believe it should be performed more regularly. It could be realistically programmed for an amateur choral society and performed on a term`s rehearsal with a semi-professional orchestra (or with piano accompaniment).
It was truly wonderful to have played a part in this concert (as principal oboist), more so since it was a special performance for both myself – given my interest in Smyth – and Peter, who, in his other life (and mine), is researching his PhD on Smyth under my supervision at @surreydmm @uniofsurrey.
Thursday 4 June PATS Studio 1 Doors open 7:30pm Free entry
Come and see student bands from @surreydmm @uniofsurrey playing their original music, to celebrate the end of the academic year.
Seven student bands – A.M, Aralia, The Billings, Dina Grace, Jasmine 7, Kill the Canary, and The Straz – will be bringing their diverse and eclectic styles of music.
What a day it`s been! There was an excellent Coffee Concert given this morning at @guildfordcathedral by 15 incredibly talented music performance students from @surreydmm @uniofsurrey, presenting a wonderfully varied programme of chamber music. (I was honoured to have introduced each item, a turn of events not entirely planned.) Many congratulations to everybody involved!
Around 10 years ago, I used to attend lectio divina at the Cathedral, so there was something of an irony that I found myself back in that building, since in the afternoon (for the first time ever) I brought lectio divina into the University classroom, as an innovative pedagogical approach to engaging with scholarship on popular music.
Later on, I heard some fantastic student performances of cover songs associated with the same module. No doubt I`ll post on that in due course as there`s much more to come.
The day ended with a @ussu.stringorchestra rehearsal in preparation for next week`s concert. I`m not a strong viola player (disclaimer: it`s not exactly my first instrument) but I have benefitted from a string of supportive students and I`m gratified by their encouragement.
I write this evening with an incredible sense of how privileged I am to work with such talented and inspiring students on a daily basis. @surreystudent @surreyalumni #ForeverSurrey #ProudtobeSurrey
Read my article, translated into French for @theconversation.fr, on the revival of a "lost" fanfare by Dame Ethel Smyth for the recent installation ceremony of the Vice-Chancellor of the @uniofsurrey. Its publication coincides with Smyth`s birthday!
For my birthday this year the @uniofsurrey organised a huge party for me, with everybody dressed up for an impeccably organised ceremony in @guildfordcathedral followed by drinks and a buffet in the PATS marquee!
Joking aside: since at my age birthdays often feel like little more than another day in the office, this one really was special for me, celebrating the achievements of the students who graduated from @surreydmm and elsewhere in the Faculty of Arts, Business and Social Sciences.
Word about the significance of today`s date seemed to get round the graduating cohorts fairly quickly. Many of the students wished me happy birthday onstage while I was shaking their hand and congratulating them!
The photos show some of our graduating MMus Music and MA Film, Animation, and Digital Arts (@fada.surrey) cohorts with lecturers including myself, Dr Tom Armstrong, and Professor Milton Mermikides @miltongram from Music, and @jonweinbren and Adam Gorry @gozzagozza from FADA. @surreystudent @surreyalumni
What was really evident to me today was how supportive our existing students are of their graduating cohorts. In one of these photos, graduand @michellewongwtw (also the inaugural winner of a new prize for a leading extra-curricular contribution to music performance at the University) is joined by a first-year student, a second-year student, and two final-year students, all of whom shared her special day.
There`s also a photo of myself and Dr Rachael Emmett @rachael_miss, whom I`ve known and worked with for over a decade, not only on her PhD but also on a major international conference in 2017. It`s been wonderful to share in her journey over the years and watch her academic career develop. Plus another photo of myself and Dr Alexia Beale @alexia_postdoc, a Physics PhD graduate whom I know since she has been playing and singing in our music ensembles for many years.
So I`ve had a day of taking a moment to celebrate recent degree awards, and having conversations with students, graduates, parents, visitors, and my wonderful colleagues on the University staff. What a lovely birthday present, and one that I`ll never forget.
I love that every time I go into Nodus Building on the @uniofsurrey main campus, I`m presented with a photo of myself on the digital screen, performing (top middle of the screen photographed) in a quartet for a World Space Week event about 18 months ago. The other performers on that occasion were Lewis Livingstone @lewis_liv (violin), Dr Alexia Beale @alexia_postdoc (viola), and @elisabeth_tu1 (cello), although the quartet has been through several iterations over the years – for instance, last year, Matteo Ranuschio @teo.rn (who spent all of last year studying for his degree in that very same Nodus Building) played cello for us.
And we`ll be welcoming both Alexia and Matteo back to campus very shortly, since they are two of the graduands whose achievements are being celebrated in tomorrow`s graduation ceremonies! @surreydmm @surreystudent @surreyalumni
Earlier today I contributed a poster presentation to the annual Surrey ExciTeS Learning and Teaching Symposium held internally at the @uniofsurrey, entitled `Managing increased student numbers without compromising the student learning experience: The "Beyond Words" orchestral concert`, reporting back on an event I organised last year to showcase the research and teaching undertaken in @surreydmm.
Earlier in the week I visited the International Menuhin Music Academy @menuhinacademy in Rolle, Switzerland with my friend and colleague from the @uniofsurrey, Professor Julian Woolford @j_woolford_, for two days of collaborative engagement and pedagogic exchange.
Here we are with professors Oleg Kaskiv, Ivan Vukčević, and Pablo de Naverán, on the stage of their wonderful concert hall; and on the banks of Lake Geneva.
Last week during our popular music lecture at @surreydmm @uniofsurrey, I asked the students to create our very own canon of popular music, using Poll Everywhere`s word cloud feature to record responses.
The findings were that our students` popular music canon would place The Beatles at the centre, followed immediately by myself and my colleague Bill Thompson @prof.lofi!
Disclaimer: this is not an April Fool`s joke (but it might as well be).
I can`t believe a week has already passed since we recorded the @guildfordschoolofacting cast album of Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn`s `High Button Shoes` last weekend in PATS Studio 1 at the @uniofsurrey: 20 hours and 464 takes, and it all sounds amazing! This is the second collaboration between GSA, the Institute of Sound Recording, and @surreydmm following `Grab Me a Gondola` last year, and the recording will be released by @stagedoorrecords in the coming months.
Congratulations and thanks to the extraordinarily talented GSA cast of final-year BA Musical Theatre students; to their director and producer for the album, the amazing Stewart Nicholls; to MD Brady Mould and the score`s arranger Rowland Lee performing on our two Steinway pianos, together with James Armstrong on bass and Richard Burden on drums/percussion; to Racheal Owens, who patiently waited in the studio throughout the recording sessions, always ready to step in at a moment`s notice and offer valuable last-minute vocal coaching to the cast; to Tim Hendy Pianos Ltd for expertly tuning our Steinways in unison on both days of the recording; and to @gabesmithsound, the final-year @tonmeister_surrey student whose sheer hard work, unflappable demeanour, and skilful leadership of the student sound engineering team ensured a productive weekend`s recording.
I`m very much looking forward to hearing the final product – to quote a line from the show, "I`ll take two!"
The hard copies have arrived! The special journal issue of Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts @theprjournal, ‘On Music’ (Vol. 29, No. 6), which I guest-edited along with my @surreydmm @uniofsurrey colleagues Tom Armstrong and Georgia Volioti, became available earlier this this week in hard copy.
‘On Music’ re-evaluates the present status of research on music performance and its relationship with performance studies across the arts disciplines, and features 20 articles written by an international collection of scholars including contributions by all three of the editors.
The special issue encompasses a wide range of musical traditions including classical, popular, experimental and world musics, representing both historical and contemporary standpoints. It aims to make a substantial contribution to the advancement of music performance studies as well as to establish the agenda for future directions in the field.
Earlier today I gave a lecture on the critical perspectives raised by cover songs for our first-year Investigating Popular Music module in @surreydmm and a few of us decided to turn up early to play through a couple of numbers for fun. We even gave an impromptu performance during the break!
Whoever said that learning can`t be fun? Such is the unique student experience at the @uniofsurrey 🙂 (Thanks to our wonderful technicians @jon.preece.12 and @johnomadgwick for making all this happen, and to Cam’ron for loan of the violin.)
Earlier today we welcomed four recent graduates of @surreydmm back to the @uniofsurrey to share with our current students their inspiring stories of their career paths post-graduation in our Music Alumni Careers Panel. This was followed by a productive networking reception during which our students were able to ask the panellists questions in a more informal setting.
Our panellists Sara (BMus CMT 2021), Heather (BMus Music 2021), Jessye (BMus Music 2023), and @vincentgodfrey_ (BMus Music 2014, MMus 2016) represented a range of careers including freelance performance, sound engineering, teaching, and academic research.
Many thanks to the panellists for giving up their time to speak to our students and share their experiences; to Emma White, Jo Plaistowe, and John McGrath for their organisational support; to Susan Pratt our Director of Employability and staff from the University of Surrey Employability and Careers Centre for speaking at the event about the support available to students during their period of study at the University (including for the Professional Training/Placement Year) and beyond; and to all the students for their attendance and participation.
A successful day`s recording yesterday of the @guildfordschoolofacting cast album of `High Button Shoes`, an early show by Jule Styne, one of the leading and most prolific composers of Broadway`s Golden Age, which the final-year BA Musical Theatre students presented onstage last week, directed by Stewart Nicholls who is also serving as producer on the album.
The talented singers have been in PATS Studio 1 at the University of Surrey accompanied by the phenomenal four-piece band led by Brady Mould performing Rowland Lee`s reduction, with @tonmeister_surrey students led by final-year undergraduate Gabe Smith working from the control room.
This is the second collaboration between GSA, the Institute of Sound Recording, and @surreydmm @uniofsurrey following last year’s cast album of Grab Me a Gondola, which reached No. 1 and No. 2 in @amazonuk’s Hot New Releases and Best Sellers list for Musical Theatre and Cabaret and No. 108 in the UK Official Charts, and received broadcasts including BBC Radio 2’s ‘Elaine Paige on Sunday’.
Let`s hope that day 2 of recording goes just as well today – and watch out for High Button Shoes when it`s released later in the year on the @stagedoorrecords label!
A Chamber Choir Concert, performances of works by and about Ethel Smyth, a `Women in Games` panel, and performances of music by @odalinedelamartinez internationally: @SurreyDMM @UniofSurrey celebrates @internationalwomensday_global and beyond.
It was a great honour to welcome @chloeknibbs_ and @teresahowards to @uniofsurrey @surreydmm this lunchtime to present ETHEL SMYTH: THE STORMY PETREL for International Women`s Week.
The concert offered excerpts from their new opera inspired by the life and music of pioneering composer Ethel Smyth, alongside Smyth`s own chamber works and extracts from her autobiography, performed by musicians @itsmaggieeeeeeeee (soprano), @sierzant_cudo_tyleczek (cello) and @melissamorrismusic (piano).
I had the pleasure of presiding over a short Q&A panel session with composer Chloe, librettist Teresa, and soprano Maggie immediately following the performance, as a prelude to a more in-depth discussion next week as part of the Composition teaching at @surreydmm.
This concert (full programme below) will be reprised next week at @warwickarts on Thursday 12 March at 1pm in the Helen Martin Studio. If you are in the area, do go and see it!
‘Her Songs of Spring’ University of Surrey Chamber Choir concert for International Women’s Day
Sunday 8 March 2026, 3pm Guildford United Reformed Church, 83 Portsmouth Road, Guildford GU2 4BS Free admission (retiring collection)
The @uniofsurrey @surreydmm Chamber Choir (director @amykearsleymusic) will perform a selection of pieces focused on female composers, and on the theme of Nature.
Programme to include:
Lili Boulanger, Hymn to the Sun Ethel Smyth, A Spring Canticle Fanny Mendelssohn, Garden Songs (selection) Clara Schumann, Evening Celebration in Venice Amy Beach, Peace I Leave With You
Like a voice from the grave, a “lost” fanfare by Dame Ethel Smyth was performed by @uosurreybrass for possibly the first time in nearly a century, to open the @uniofsurrey Vice-Chancellor’s installation ceremony at @guildfordcathedral earlier this month.
Find out more about this revival of Smyth’s final work in my article published in @theconversation.uk:
ETHEL SMYTH: THE STORMY PETREL WEDNESDAY 4 MARCH 2026, 1:10PM PATS STUDIO 1, UNIVERSITY OF SURREY
@chloeknibbs_ and @teresahowards present “Ethel Smyth: The Stormy Petrel” at @uniofsurrey @surreydmm on 4 March 2026, 1:10pm in PATS Studio 1 at the University of Surrey’s Stag Hill campus, for International Women’s Week.
This concert presents a new work inspired by the life and music of pioneering composer Ethel Smyth, alongside her own chamber works and extracts from her autobiography, with musicians @itsmaggieeeeeeeee, @sierzant_cudo_tyleczek and @melissamorrismusic.
The concert will be followed by a brief talk and Q&A session from 2-2:30pm with a panel to include Chloe Knibbs (composer) and Teresa Howard (librettist), chaired by the University of Surrey’s Head of Music and Media, Dr Christopher Wiley, offering a powerful look inside a music theatre work-in-progress for Surrey’s Composition students plus members of the public.
With thanks to @suzzievan at @warwickarts (where the concert will be reprised on 12 March) and @dr_chris_wiley at the @uniofsurrey, and, for financial support, to the University of Surrey, Midlands4Cities Engagement Fund, the Peggy Ramsay Foundation and the Francis Routh Trust.
Earlier in the week, the @uniofsurrey held an installation ceremony in @guildfordcathedral for its new Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stephen Jarvis, attended by some 600 people.
@surreydmm was honoured to provide the all music. The University`s student-led @uosurreybrass (pictured in the first photo) plus guest percussion performed a modern world premiere, my own transcription and arrangement of Dame Ethel Smyth`s `Hot Potatoes` Fanfare (which I conducted), from the Cathedral`s South Gallery to initiate proceedings.
Then the University`s Chamber Choir (pictured in the second photo) performed Parry`s `I Was Glad`, with my own added instrumental parts. The Chamber Choir`s director @amykearsleymusic (it`s easy to forget sometimes that she was a music student at Surrey herself not so long ago, she`s come so far since then) conducted the choir down in the main choir stalls while I relayed the beat to the brass and percussion in the gallery, accompanied by final-year BMus Music student @williambrooke05 (who we have for a few more months before he takes up an organ scholarship at a UK cathedral) at the organ. It was an impressive feat of musical co-ordination between musicians in three different locations within the building!
The Chamber Choir also gave a beautiful performance of Wood`s `Hail, Gladd`ning Light` (which they even let me sing second tenor in) immediately following the formal installation of the Vice-Chancellor, and William played a half-hour organ recital before the service plus the `Final` from Vierne`s Symphony No. 1 as the voluntary.
Many congratulations indeed to all the musicians involved – I received countless very complimentary comments afterwards about the music from University staff and local community members. It was definitely a day to remember!
Our amazing @surreydmm final-year BEng Film Production and Broadcast Engineering @filmeng_surrey (FPBE) and MA Film, Animation and Digital Arts @fada.surrey (FADA) students at the screening of their fantastic Semester 1 projects earlier this evening at the @uniofsurrey.
It`s incredible to think that just three months ago, these students didn`t even know each other. Yet here they are now, presenting four brilliant collaborative film projects that involved them writing, acting, directing, filming, editing, and so much more on the Visual Narrative Collaborations module (also known as VNC or Collaborative Projects).
Module lecturer Adam Gorry @gozzagozza (at the back of the photo with arms in the air) organised an excellent screening attended by around 30 students, friends, and lecturers. Congratulations to Adam and to module co-lecturer Hesam Abbasi @hsmexplains – both of them Surrey MA FADA graduates themselves – as well as to the wonderfully supportive FPBE and FADA lecturers Lisa Scott Gordon and John Warburton @warblefly.
And the biggest congratulations to the students! I hope they`re all very proud of the wonderful things they have achieved here at Surrey in such a short space of time. @surreystudent @surreyalumni #ProudtobeSurrey
It was an absolute pleasure to catch up yesterday with my brilliant former student and @surreydmm alumna, Kirsten Parry (BMus Music 2016, MMus 2017) – or as she is now, Miss Parry, Assistant Director of Music at Tormead School, Guildford!
Kirsten, sorry, I mean Miss Parry, had invited me to adjudicate the Tormead Instrumental Festival: 31 astonishing young performers in four different categories. So much talent and musicality on display and such a variety of instruments and repertoire! It was a truly fantastic evening, and a great honour to have been asked to adjudicate – but a very difficult task to choose the eventual winners.
It was also wonderful to find out what Miss Parry had achieved since graduating from the @uniofsurrey, and to meet the next generation of musicians currently being taught by somebody I had taught myself. It really didn`t feel as though it`s been almost a decade since I last saw Kirsten – as you`ll surmise from the high-fiving in the video! @surreyalumni @surreystudent #ProudtobeSurrey
A throwback to the first gig of the year, last weekend. This one was informal: one of our wonderful regular orchestral players from Guildford town, Christina @laing9633 — who has helped us out, amongst other things, with all of University Orchestra, Community Orchestra, and the Beyond Words Orchestra last semester — had a party for a milestone birthday.
@vincentgodfrey_ (Surrey music graduate, freelance musician, and current PhD student) and I turned up with our instruments prepared to play a few classical duets — arrangements of Delibes` Flower Duet, Mozart`s Rondo Alla Turca, the Waltz from Tchaikovsky`s Sleeping Beauty, that sort of thing. This was to reflect the classical side of Tina`s musical life since her pop-skiffle band, The @nefarious.picaroons, were also playing. In the end, the audience were rather more attentive to our duetting than we`d anticipated!
What was lovely about the party was how many musicians were there from various different ensembles in the local area — orchestral musicians, ukulele players, singers, and so on — including several who had performed with @surreydmm groups, or come along to @uniofsurrey concerts (even the most recent one last December!). So I met some great new people and re-met some familiar ones!
It just shows that the local musical community is one big happy family and we are all friendly and connected. 🙂
This Friday (9 January) and next (16 January) see the public performances of work undertaken for our biennial Music Project module at @surreydmm, starting at 6:30pm in PATS Studio 1, @uniofsurrey on both days, with free entry.
Students from across the years and programmes (BMus Music, MMus Music, Creative Music Technology, and Tonmeister) come together every semester to study a Music Project on a theme determined by the research specialisms and interests of the lecturer leading the module that semester. Some students offer performances for assessment, while others write compositions or essays.
This semester`s theme is `Celebrity Cultures and Divas`, led by Dr Barbara Gentili, who also kindly invited me to contribute a guest-lecture (though I never found out whether this was because the class considered me a celebrity or a diva…).
Please join us this Friday or next – both concerts should be fantastic!
As our students start return to return to campus today, they will be greeted by this lifesize-plus display in the foyer of our Library building, which includes our @surreydmm student Matteo @teo.rn with his cello!
Matteo has done some great work at the @uniofsurrey during his time here, performing in our orchestras and chamber ensembles as well as shooting a film on a musical story (and involving many of our students in one capacity or another) for his final degree project.
We`re thrilled that he`s been a key contributor to our musical life, and that he cites these opportunities as one of the biggest reasons he chose to study at Surrey.
It`s a timely reminder that the UCAS deadline is 14 January 2026 for applications to our undergraduate programmes: BMus Music, BMus Creative Music Technology, BSc or BMus Music and Sound Recording (Tonmeister), BEng Film Production and Broadcast Engineering, and BSc Games Design. For more information, please see: https://www.surrey.ac.uk/music-and-media/study/undergraduate-courses
Surrey students who are coming to the end of their undergraduate degree are warmly invited to stay here for a Masters, and will receive a 20% discount on fees plus (subject to deadlines) guaranteed accommodation, on being offered a place. Our Masters degrees include MMus Music and MA Film, Animation and Digital Arts. For further information, see the `Stay Surrey` campaign: https://my.surrey.ac.uk/campaign/stay-surrey
The special journal issue of Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts (@theprjournal), ‘On Music’ (Vol. 29, No. 6), was published online on 19 December 2025, guest-edited by three @surreydmm academics: Tom Armstrong, Georgia Volioti, and myself. The printed version will follow in the coming weeks.
‘On Music’ re-evaluates the present status of research on music performance and its relationship with performance studies across the arts disciplines. It features 20 articles (many of them freely available on open access) by Jack Adler-McKean, Tom Armstrong and Madeleine Shapiro, Karen Burland and Emily Payne, Jennifer Daniel, Inge Engelbrecht, Colin Frank, Anthony Gritten, Alexandra Huang-Kokina, Matthew Paul Mazanek, Murphy McCaleb, Eva Moreda Rodriguez, Ivan Mouraviev, Federica Nardella, Joshua Neumann, Tanja Orning, Jonathan Packham, Michael Holland and Maddy Parkins-Craig, Maria Sappho, Georgia Volioti, and Christopher Wiley.
My article for the journal explores the implications to modern performances of recently rediscovered music for which any previous traditions of interpretation as may once have existed are now lost to history. It take as its case study Smyth`s piano miniature ‘Aus der Jugendzeit!! E. v. H.’, comparatively analysing multiple modern recordings to reveal wide divergence in approaches to tempo and rubato, as well as offering a further interpretation that mediates between them, which I recorded at the piano at the @uniofsurrey @tonmeister_surrey nine months ago.
Wishing all my academic collaborators the very best for a productive and successful 2026!
Great to see news of the University of Surrey Department of Music and Media`s excellent NSS 2025 results on the display screens around the University of Surrey campus.
@surreydmm scored 92.9% for overall student satisfaction, giving us a ranking of No.2 (Others in Technology), No.5 (Music), and No.7 (Cinematics) in the UK.
The @uniofsurrey is also ranked 3rd for Music in the UK by the Guardian University Guide 2026, with a Top 3 placing for the past three years running including No.1 last year!
And we`re 3rd in the UK for Cinematics in the Complete University Guide 2026.
95% of our students are in employment/further study within 15 months of graduating (HESA Graduate Outcomes Survey 2025).
You can study BMus Music, BMus Creative Music Technology, BSc or BMus Music and Sound Recording (Tonmeister), BEng Film Production and Broadcast Engineering, or (now in its second year) BSc Games Design.
Apply now before the @ucas_online deadline on 14 January 2026!
The below post relates to my essay on Marjory Kennedy-Fraser and the opera she wrote with Granville Bantock, The Seal-Woman, which appeared as the lead article in the Journal of The International Alliance for Women in Music (@iawmcommunity) a couple of months ago.
It provided the ideal opportunity for me to pursue my fascination with both mythology (selkie myths in particular) and women in music, as well as to discuss the CD recording released by @retrospectopera earlier this year.
As the festive season approaches, here`s a throwback to the release earlier in the year of our recording of Marjory Kennedy-Fraser and Granville Bantock`s Celtic folk opera The Seal-Woman.
While it`s too late now to place an order for the CD as a stocking-filler for a loved one, The Seal-Woman and all 12 releases in our catalogue remain available at our online shop: https://retrospectopera.org.uk/shop/
If you`re planning a break from work this Christmas and might have the time and inclination to find out more about Retrospect Opera`s latest release, why not read @dr_chris_wiley`s recent article about Marjory Kennedy-Fraser (pictured) and The Seal-Woman?
`Kennedy-Fraser was not merely the librettist for the opera The Seal-Woman; her work in gathering and arranging Hebridean folksong was absolutely fundamental to its composition, and its score was heavily dependent on these materials. […]
Retrospect Opera’s recording offers a timely opportunity not just to discover The Seal-Woman, but also to recognize and celebrate the full extent of Kennedy-Fraser’s pivotal influence on the opera’s creation and performance, extending to the libretto, the score, and the premiere production.`
As we enter the festive season, here`s a throwback to one of the highlights of the year at @surreydmm, last month`s Beyond Words orchestral concert for the Being Human Festival 2025.
In this video, first-year student Alice @ajofficial2025 gives us a glimpse behind the scenes of preparations on the day of the event, her first concert at the @uniofsurrey. It`s a wonderful record of an amazing performance, and a fitting celebration of its success.
Hosted by the University of Surrey at Guildford United Reformed Church, our intergenerational concert featured a 46-piece orchestra comprising @uniofsurrey students, @surreyalumni, and special guests from the surrounding area, many of whom can be seen on Alice`s video. #ProudToBeSurrey
We presented performances of five works by Ethel Smyth, including two UK premieres (plus audience participation in `The March of the Women`), together with arrangements of music from Jurassic Park, James Bond, and ABBA.
The programme was completed by a new piece, Scenes from ‘Imoinda’, composed and conducted by our Honorary Visiting Professor @odalinedelamartinez, featuring professional soloists Donna Bateman (soprano) and Sandeep Gurrapadi @9sandeep6 (tenor) – who make a cameo on this video!
Audience members also had the opportunity to try out selected instruments for themselves during the interval, facilitated by our Music Hub partner, Surrey Arts.
Many congratulations again to all the performers, and with grateful thanks to our sponsors: Being Human Festival 2025, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy Arts and Humanities Impact Acceleration Account, University of Surrey Faculty of Arts, Business, and Social Sciences Learning and Teaching Project Fund, University of Surrey Music and Media, University of Surrey
Earlier tonight we held our end of semester Christmas concert featuring the @uniofsurrey University Orchestra and Choir at University Hall on campus, hosted by @surreydmm.
It was really amazing to have been part of this concert, playing principal oboe and cor anglais in an orchestra of some 70 players and with a choir of around 60. What`s more, we didn`t bring in a single musician for the concert – everybody who performed was a regular player, with no need for deputies!
The programme included Tchaikovsky`s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture, Benjamin Britten`s Soirées musicales, Offenbach`s Can Can, a medley from My Fair Lady with the choir, other choral items including an Amy Beach song, plus a surprise encore!
Congratulations to our brilliant conductors Russell Keable and @amykearsleymusic, and to all the musicians and organisers. The audience of around 300 certainly enjoyed themselves!
Some photos of the @ussu.stringorchestra conducted by @jess.townson, in which I played viola for last night`s Ensembles Concert hosted by @surreydmm at the @uniofsurrey.
The concert featured six @surreyunion and @surreyalumni student ensembles including @uos_windband (in which I played oboe), @uosurreybrass, and the inaugural performance of our newly founded @uosflutechoir, plus the band Jasmine 7 and the student vocal group Vox Hominum. String Orchestra performed Elgar`s Serenade for Strings, a medley of themes from the musical Wicked, and an arrangement of Billy Joel`s `And So It Goes`.
Earlier today I was interviewed by James Cannon on the BBC Radio Surrey breakfast show about the University Orchestra and Choir concert taking place tomorrow (Saturday 6 December), 7:30-9:30pm in University Hall at @uniofsurrey, hosted by @surreydmm.
For further information about the concert, which includes Tchaikovsky`s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture, Benjamin Britten`s Soirées musicales, Offenbach`s Can Can, and a medley from My Fair Lady with the choir, please see this webpage: https://www.surrey.ac.uk/events/20251206-university-surrey-orchestra-choir
Given the weather at the time of the interview, I had a photo taken inside rather than the customary selfie outside the building with the BBC Radio Surrey sign in the background.
I even managed to sneak a reference in the interview to tonight`s @ussu_jazzo event, the second of our three consecutive evenings of concerts – ensemble music-making is certainly thriving at the University!
This amazing concert takes place at 3pm today (bake sale/art sale from 2pm) at All Saints` Church, Guildford, in aid of the Mental Health Foundation.
Featuring Vox Hominum, Michelle Tsz Wun Wong @michellewongwtw, Jack Fisher, Seth Nel, Giles Rae, Maxim Lavrov, William Brooke, Ben Thorn, Maureen Galea, Margaret Roberts, and more!
Tickets £8, further information at the QR codes in the image.
Short video from the `Beyond Words: How Music Creates Meaning` free orchestral concert presented by @surreydmm @uniofsurrey last Saturday afternoon, 15 November, at Guildford United Reformed Church, as part of the Being Human Festival 2025. @surreyalumni @impactsurrey
Short video from the `Beyond Words: How Music Creates Meaning` free orchestral concert presented by @surreydmm @uniofsurrey last Saturday afternoon, 15 November, at Guildford United Reformed Church, as part of the Being Human Festival 2025. @surreyalumni @impactsurrey
Short video from the `Beyond Words: How Music Creates Meaning` free orchestral concert presented by @surreydmm @uniofsurrey last Saturday afternoon, 15 November, at Guildford United Reformed Church, as part of the Being Human Festival 2025. @surreyalumni @impactsurrey
After months of planning and organisation, and weeks of intense rehearsal, I`m delighted and very proud to say that yesterday`s `Beyond Words` concert at Guildford United Reformed Church was a resounding success!
The event involved a 46-piece orchestra comprising students from @surreydmm, @guildfordschoolofacting, and @uniofsurrey, @surreyalumni recent graduates, and special guests from the surrounding area.
They were joined by @uosurreybrass (president @soapydiddleydoo87), a sextet of singers from Vox Hominum (director @michellewongwtw), and four conductors: myself, @vincentgodfrey_, Peter Fender, and the legendary Odaline de la Martinez.
The programme was framed around research and teaching undertaken at the University of Surrey, and featured works by Ethel Smyth (including two UK premieres), interlinked by brief introductions in which I explained the links to this research.
Completing the programme was a new work by Odaline de la Martinez, performed with professional singers Donna Bateman and Sandeep Gurrapadi, plus arrangements of themes from Jurassic Park, James Bond, and ABBA.
In addition to conducting six items, I played oboe in two more, and organ and piano in another. At one point I even sang, leading the audience in a rousing performance of Smyth`s `The March of the Women`.
The event was presented in liaison with our partners @surreyhistorycentre/Surrey Heritage, @retrospectopera, and @surreyarts, the latter offering the audience an opportunity to try selected musical instruments during the interval. Students from our @tonmeister_surrey degree recorded the whole performance.
The feedback from the audience of over 150 attendees of all ages was overwhelmingly positive and very heartening! @impactsurrey
The event features students from @surreydmm, @guildfordschoolofacting, @uniofsurrey, and @surreyalumni, as well as partners @surreyhistorycentre, @retrospectopera, and @surreyarts.
Up and on campus early this morning for an interview with BBC Radio Surrey, speaking to James Cannon on the Breakfast Show about the `Beyond Words` free public orchestral concert taking place this Saturday, 15 November, 3-5:30pm at Guildford United Reformed Church.
The event features students from @surreydmm, @guildfordschoolofacting, @uniofsurrey, and @surreyalumni, as well as partners @surreyhistorycentre, @retrospectopera, and @surreyarts. @impactsurrey
Last Saturday (1 November), I performed in the world premiere of `Scenes from the Opera "Imoinda"` by Odaline de la Martinez, at the inaugural concert of The Merlyn Ensemble at The Warehouse, Waterloo, London.
Conducted by @vincentgodfrey_, the programme also included works by Price, Britten, Coleridge-Taylor and Smyth. Here are some photos from the performance and rehearsals.
Next Saturday (15 November), in Guildford United Reformed Church, we will present a repeat performance of `Scenes from "Imoinda"`, alongside several little-heard pieces by Ethel Smyth and some lighter arrangements.
FREE ORCHESTRAL CONCERT FOR ALL THE FAMILY SATURDAY 15 NOVEMBER, 3-5:30PM GUILDFORD UNITED REFORMED CHURCH, GU2 4BS
Musicians from the University of Surrey and the town of Guildford will perform an intergenerational concert framed around the music of Dame Ethel Smyth (1858–1944).
The programme also features much-loved film and popular music arrangements including Jurassic Park, James Bond and ABBA.
The instruments of the orchestra will be introduced during the concert, and audience members will be able to try out selected instruments for themselves during the 30-minute interval, facilitated by our Music Hub partner, Surrey Arts. Some audience interaction is planned as well!
This event is part of the University of Surrey Being Human Festival 2025 Hub Programme, and is presented in liaison with partners @surreyhistorycentre, @retrospectopera and @surreyarts.
My wife Jenny and various staff and students from @surreydmm baked cakes and other items to sell to raise money for @breastcancernow.
It was truly gratifying to have the support and custom of so many staff and students from across the University, and even some @surreyalumni who took the opportunity to come back onto campus to buy cakes!
Particular thanks to Margaret, Michelle and Ella who baked some very popular and delicious cakes and other items for us; and to @michellewongwtw and Sid for all their amazing help on the stall.
I`ll post the exact amount raised in due course but we sold a couple of hundred cakes so I`d say it was a successful sale! Plus it`s also not too late to donate if anybody would feel willing and able to do so: https://www.justgiving.com/page/jenny-wiley-1-bake-sale
CHARITY BAKE SALE TOMORROW ON UNIVERSITY OF SURREY CAMPUS
Wear It Pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month – Charity Bake Sale on @uniofsurrey campus, Friday 24 October, 11am-2pm
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. 24 October is ‘Wear It Pink’ day, when people all over the country are encouraged to wear pink to raise awareness of the campaign. More information is here: https://breastcancernow.org/wear-it-pink/about-wear-it-pink
My wife and I are organising a charity bake sale to raise funds for @breastcancernow, in the concourse outside the Co-op on the ground floor of George Edwards (Library) building at the @uniofsurrey (Stag Hill campus) from 11am-2pm on Friday 24 October.
Please come along and buy our delicious cakes, and wear pink tomorrow to raise awareness of the campaign!
Thank you to Kurt Gänzl, internationally renowned author of books on musical theatre, for his amazing endorsement of @guildfordschoolofacting and their Grab Me a Gondola 2025 cast recording.
CALLING ALL UNIVERSITY OF SURREY STUDENTS AND GUILDFORD-BASED PEOPLE!
Wear It Pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month – Charity Bake Sale on @uniofsurrey campus, Friday 24 October, 11am-2pm
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. 24 October is ‘Wear It Pink’ day, when people all over the country are encouraged to wear pink to raise awareness of the campaign. More information is here: https://breastcancernow.org/wear-it-pink/about-wear-it-pink
My wife and I are organising a charity bake sale to raise funds for Breast Cancer Now, in the concourse outside the Co-op on the ground floor of George Edwards (Library) building at the @uniofsurrey (Stag Hill campus) from 11am-2pm on Friday 24 October.
Please come along and buy our delicious cakes, and wear pink that day to raise awareness of the campaign!
Do you enjoy baking? Could you bake something (such as a cake/biscuits/traybakes) and donate it to be sold at the bake sale? (It can be pink themed e.g. pink icing.) If so, then please get in contact with me at c.wiley@surrey.ac.uk.
Posted @withregram • @guildfordschoolofacting It`s been a few weeks since our 2025 cast recording of Grab Me a Gondola was released in CD format, and it`s been lovely to read all your fantastic reviews.
Dr Christopher Wiley, head of @surreydmm, celebrates the exceptional work of our BA (Hons) Musical Theatre students and BMus Music and Sound Recording (Tonmeister) students in reviving this rarely heard British musical classic.
Programme: Odaline de la Martinez, `Scenes from Imoinda` (World premiere) Britten, Simple Symphony Florence Price, Adoration and Three Little Dances Ethel Smyth, `Finale` from String Quartet in E minor (for string orchestra) Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, 4 Novelleten for Strings
For the third year running, the Space Invaders Quartet has played at the @uniofsurrey and @institute_of_physics (@iopsouthcentral) takeover of the @tunsgatequarter, Guildford for @worldspaceweek!
The @surreydmm quartet comprising myself (oboe), @jess.townson (violin), @alexia00002019 (viola), and @teo.rn (cello) performed two 45-minute sets of arrangements of space-themed music.
Pieces we performed included popular music such as `Starlight` (Muse) and `Life on Mars` (David Bowie); classical music such as `The Blue Danube` (used in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey) and `Jupiter` from Holst`s The Planets; songs from film musicals such as `City of Stars` (La La Land) and `Rewrite the Stars` (The Greatest Showman); and film music including themes from Star Wars and Star Trek.
Five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ for Grab Me a Gondola – Guildford School of Acting, 2025 cast recording (Stage Door Records)
`an exemplar of collaboration between conservatoire and university […] over an hour’s captivating musical entertainment […] it really is the gift that keeps on giving […] The 16-strong GSA cast seem to revel in the catchy, earworm-inducing melodies […] a must-have item on the shelf of any aficionado of British musical theatre […] GSA’s 2025 cast recording of Grab Me a Gondola looks set to continue making waves.`
🚨 GRAB ME A GONDOLA HITS THE BBC RADIO 2 AIRWAVES 🚨 🚨 AND REACHES NO.108 IN THE UK OFFICIAL CHARTS! 🚨
The 2025 cast album of `Grab Me a Gondola`, recorded by @tonmeister_surrey students at @surreydmm, @uniofsurrey with a cast of @guildfordschoolofacting final-year Musical Theatre students, closed today’s episode of BBC Radio 2`s `Elaine Paige on Sunday`!
In the words of the First Lady of Musical Theatre herself: `Musical theatre stars of tomorrow, methinks … Good work there, Guildford students!`. Many congratulations to everybody involved: Stewart Nicholls, @dr_chris_wiley, Brady Mould, Rowland Lee, @mark.hennessy_02, and many more!
Music and Media at the @uniofsurrey welcomed around 120 new students this morning reading degrees including BMus and MMus Music, Creative Music Technology, @tonmeister_surrey, @filmeng_surrey, MA Film, Animation and Digital Arts, and our new BSc Games Design.
That`s me in the photo welcoming them all as Head of Music and Media @surreydmm.
Earlier this week we welcomed over 150 alumni, current students, and staff to the @uniofsurrey for an anniversary event celebrating the milestone 55 years of Music and Media at the University.
Following my welcome speech as current Head, the @tonmeister_surrey alumni heard an inspirational talk from Emeritus Professor Dave Fisher and celebrated the distinguished service to the University of long-standing Tonmeister academics Tim Brookes and Rupert Flindt, while our other visitors were treated to an excellent informal concert featuring MMus students @sethlyonsmusic, Elliott Martin, and Yanran Xiong @serryyan.
With ample opportunity to enjoy the delights of Hari’s Bar at Rubix and to network and catch up with graduates, students, and staff, the highlight of the evening was the first performance (but hopefully not the last) by our staff band, the SKA-MEISTERS, comprising Music and Media academics, alumni and technicians.
As @surreydmm goes from strength to strength, with over 120 new students due to arrive next week including the inaugural intake of our innovative BSc Games Design degree, here`s to another 55 successful years!
The @Guardian University Guide 2026 was released this morning and the University of Surrey is ranked No.3 for Music!
On top of last year’s No.1 and No.2 the year before, this places Surrey in the Top 3 universities in the UK for Music for the last three years – an excellent result.
The 2025 cast album of James Gilbert and Julian More`s Grab Me a Gondola, recorded at @surreydmm @uniofsurrey by @tonmeister_surrey students from the Institute of Sound Recording, with a cast of final-year musical theatre students (now graduates) from @guildfordschoolofacting, was released today by @stagedoorrecords!
An exclusive launch event was held at the Apollo Theatre in London`s West End, next to the Lyric Theatre where Grab Me a Gondola was produced in 1956. The CD may be purchased here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FJ2LCGQM
Many congratulations to everybody involved: Director and Producer Stewart Nicholls; Assistant Producer @dr_chris_wiley; Musical Director Brady Mould; Rowland Lee for the musical and vocal arrangements; @mark.hennessy_02 who engineered, edited, mixed and mastered the recording; and of course the talented cast of GSA singers!
That`s a wrap! We`ve professionally recorded Richard Stoker`s three-act opera Johnson Preserv`d (1967) in its entirety across 3.5 days at @surreydmm @uniofsurrey, conducted by Odaline de la Martinez for commercial release on the @retrospectopera label.
This week and next, PATS Studio 1 @surreydmm @uniofsurrey is host to a professional recording of the three-act opera Johnson Preserv’d by Richard Stoker (1967), in advance of its commercial release next year.
The photos are taken from the three days of intensive piano-vocal rehearsals. Our Honorary Visiting Professor, Odaline de la Martinez, is conducting five of the UK’s leading opera singers – @oliviacarrellsoprano, @sianmairicameron (mezzo-soprano), Michael Gibson ( @michaelg_tenor), @markmilhofer (tenor) and @andrewdaviesbaritone – with star repetiteur @nataliebleicher at the piano.
They will be joined for the recording sessions by 14 musicians from Odaline’s regular ensemble, Lontano, led by our violin tutor and leading professional musician, Caroline Balding.
We’ll record across 3.5 days next week, with Matthew Bennett @mbennettproductions as recording producer, Dave Rowell @filoclassical as recording engineer, and Caitlin Pittol-Neville @caitlin.pn as assistant engineer. All three are @tonmeister_surrey alumni.
Our Head of Music and Media, @dr_chris_wiley, is serving as Executive Producer for the recording, with professional musician and current PhD Music student @vincentgodfrey_ as studio assistant.
The @gsa_musicaltheatre cast recording of James Gilbert and Julian More`s Grab Me a Gondola, recorded at @surreydmm @tonmeister_surrey @uniofsurrey and being released on the @stagedoorrecords label, is currently at #3 in @amazonuk`s Best Sellers in Musicals & Cabaret!
What`s more, it`s also back at #1 in @amazonuk`s Hot New Releases for Musicals & Cabaret! I`m told it also reached #74 in Amazon`s Album charts.
Many congratulations to my friend and colleague Stewart Nicholls, who produced the album with myself as assistant producer, and to everybody involved.
This month`s issue of @opera_magazine includes my article on Dame Ethel Smyth`s final opera, Entente Cordiale, to commemorate the centenary of its premiere at the @rcmlondon in 1925 in a double-bill with Smyth`s penultimate opera, Fête Galante.
‘Vive l’Entente Cordiale! Christopher Wiley on Ethel Smyth’s Last Opera’, Opera with Opera News (September 2025), pp. 1289–94.
UNIVERSITY OF SURREY MUSIC AND MEDIA 55TH ANNIVERSARY ALUMNI REUNION
The University of Surrey @uniofsurrey is organising a Music and Media alumni reunion event on campus on the evening of Wednesday 10 September (starting at 6:30 for 7pm, with pre-event activities from 2pm).
Alumni, students, and current and former staff of Music and Media @surreydmm are all invited!
Please join us back on Stag Hill campus (venue TBC) to reconnect and celebrate an incredible 55 years of Music and Media at the University, a milestone we’re proud to share with you.
Whether you graduated recently or years ago, we’d love to welcome you back and hear what you’ve been up to.
Please see the flyer for the events planned; the final programme/schedule will be released shortly. To register your attendance, please sign up at: https://tinyurl.com/55-years-dmm
If you have any questions, please contact our alumni team: alumni@surrey.ac.uk
It was really great to catch up with @dudupektunc earlier this week for a doctoral supervision. Dudu was an undergraduate music student in @surreydmm @uniofsurrey and has returned here to study for her PhD with @johnmcgrathmusic and myself.
Dudu, who is something of a musical leading light in her home country of Cyprus, contributes a monthly column to the Art Cyprus [Sanat Kıbrıs] newspaper, published in both Turkish and English. Sometimes she focuses these articles on her PhD research, as with this recent column that I wanted to share.
The @gsa_musicaltheatre cast recording of James Gilbert and Julian More`s Grab Me a Gondola, recorded at @surreydmm, @uniofsurrey and being released on the @stagedoorrecords label, is currently #1 in @amazonuk`s Hot New Releases for Musicals & Cabaret!
The 2025 @gsa_musicaltheatre cast recording of James Gilbert and Julian More`s Grab Me a Gondola, with musical and vocal arrangements by Rowland Lee, is now available for pre-order on Amazon ahead of its release on 12 September on the @stagedoorrecords label: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FJ2LCGQM
Recorded at @surreydmm at the @uniofsurrey, the album features a cast of final-year BA Musical Theatre students from Guildford School of Acting and was recorded by @tonmeister_surrey students from the Institute of Sound Recording, with Director and Producer Stewart Nicholls, Assistant Producer @dr_chris_wiley, Musical Director Brady Mould, and Engineered, Edited, Mixed and Mastered by @mark.hennessy_02.
The final project is well worth the 20 hours we all spent in PATS Studio 1, one weekend back in March. It`s a fantastic testament to the wealth of collaborative possibilities across the @uniofsurrey School of Arts, Humanities and Creative Industries. Congratulations to everybody involved!
Earlier today I was part of a 30-piece orchestra put together to record a piece and be part of filming of a scene for an ambitious final project for the @surreydmm MA Film, Animation, and Digital Arts (FADA) programme @uniofsurrey.
Music students and alumni were joined by University Orchestra regulars and guest musicians from the town of Guildford to create the scene, with MA FADA students Matteo Ranuschio ( @teo.rn) and Olga Shishenkova directing and producing, and PhD Music student @vincentgodfrey93 wielding the conductor`s baton.
In the morning we recorded the audio, with students from @tonmeister_surrey in the control room, while @fada.surrey students captured all manner of close-up shots during rehearsals. In the afternoon, the microphones were cleared away to enable us to take the wide and medium shots of the orchestra.
Being involved in an event that was part rehearsal, part studio recording, and part filming session was such an amazing experience, and really shows what can be achieved uniquely at @surreydmm where the different areas of film, music, and sound recording are brought together in the same department.
I was also heartened by the dedication of both staff and students @uniofsurrey. The event lasted around seven hours, during which every member of the MA FADA cohort was present (even though it was a Sunday) as well as at least five @surreydmm staff.
We`ve all learnt a great deal today about performing while working around both microphones and video cameras. We look forward to seeing the final product when it is screened in public in September, but having played the finale of Dvořák`s Rondo in G minor, Op. 94 for endless takes earlier, I don`t think any of us wants to hear it again for a while!
UNIVERSITY OF SURREY MUSIC AND MEDIA 55TH ANNIVERSARY ALUMNI REUNION
The University of Surrey @uniofsurrey is organising a Music and Media alumni reunion event on campus on the evening of Wednesday 10 September (starting at 6 for 6:30pm).
Alumni, students, and current and former staff of Music and Media @surreydmm are all invited!
Please join us back on Stag Hill campus (venue TBC) to reconnect and celebrate an incredible 55 years of Music and Media at the University, a milestone we’re proud to share with you.
Whether you graduated recently or years ago, we’d love to welcome you back and hear what you’ve been up to.
The invitation and programme will be released soon, but for now, please save the date and sign up at https://tinyurl.com/55-years-dmm to let us know if you will be able to make it.
If you have any questions, please contact our alumni team: alumni@surrey.ac.uk
It`s always an honour to share in students` graduations – but more so this year. Not only did I get to shake the hands of every graduating student in @surreydmm as the first cohort of students to graduate from the @uniofsurrey #classof2025, but I also got to host our ceremony`s amazing and inspiring guest speaker, Surrey alumna Odaline de la Martinez! @surreyalumni
Here`s myself and my wonderful colleague Dr Tom Armstrong alongside four of our BMus Music graduands, @johnfaria.music, @lewis_liv, @_ameliebradley, and @eddie_henning15, celebrating in the marquee opposite PATS building following the ceremony in @guildfordcathedral. Apologies for my lack of robes – it was 30 degrees in the middle of the day!
Many congratulations to all the Music, Music and Sound Recording (Tonmeister), Creative Music Technology, and Film Production and Broadcast Engineering graduands! @tonmeister_surrey @filmeng_surrey
Just a short message I recorded earlier in the week for the graduating students in @surreydmm, in advance of #graduationday at the @uniofsurrey.
Many congratulations to all Music, Music and Sound Recording (@tonmeister_surrey), Creative Music Technology, and Film Production and Broadcast Engineering (@filmeng_surrey) graduands!
I wish you all the very best for your futures, and I expect to hear many great things about your achievements as @surreyalumni.
It`s a week of awaydays. First there was the School of Arts, Humanities and Creative Industries awayday on research on Tuesday, at which we discussed interdisciplinary research themes and research collaborations in addition to networking with, and finding out about the research undertaken by, colleagues across @guildfordschoolofacting, @surreysll, and @surreydmm. I was honoured to have been invited to lead one of the sessions, at which I discussed my research collaborations with colleagues in literature and theatre, and how as a musicologist and musician, my research straddles disciplines from education studies to physics and astronomy.
Then there was a @surreydmm learning and teaching awayday earlier today, at which we heard the teaching and programme design initiatives of various colleagues as well as being joined by students to discuss issues of assessment and feedback. I presented on a subject on which I`ve spent much time thinking these past couple of years – the challenges and opportunities posed by Generative AI to academia – as well as outlining my design of an innovative assessment that optionally incorporates use of AI-generated text in an undergraduate popular music module.
Next week, we`ll have another School of Arts, Humanities and Creative Industries awayday, this time to consider education strategy and degree portfolio development across @guildfordschoolofacting, @surreysll, and @surreydmm. The undergraduates at @uniofsurrey have gone home for the summer already, but the academic staff remain hard at work planning for the future, striving to enhance the student learning experience still further.
On Thursday I gave a one-hour talk on ‘Music and Astronomy’ / ‘Music and Space’ for Southampton Astronomical Society, at the Isaac Watts Memorial Church Hall, Southampton. Here`s a couple of screenshots about the talk, together with a photo of me demonstrating the theremin.
Many thanks to Gerard O`Mara of Southampton Astronomical Society for the invitation to speak to a highly interested, albeit select, audience, and to science friends including @alexia00002019 and @samtcarr for the support and motivation to develop this talk.
The programme of events for the year organised by Southampton Astronomical Society is available here: https://sas-astro.co.uk/programme/
Further information about Southampton Astronomical Society may be found here: https://sas-astro.co.uk/
Tonight saw the last event of the undergraduate academic year for @surreydmm: the @uniofsurrey University Orchestra concert at @htsmguildford. The programme was Shostakovich, Festive Overture; Grieg, Peer Gynt Suite No. 1; Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 5, second movement, `Andante cantabile`; and Brahms, Academic Festival Overture.
What a concert to end the year on! Brilliantly played under the inspired leadership of our Director of Conducting, Russell Keable, the orchestra really excelled themselves, particularly since the late placement of Easter this year and the May Bank Holidays meant that rehearsal time on Monday evenings was extremely limited for such a musically demanding programme.
For some students about to graduate, this will sadly have been their final concert and they will be sorely missed next year. I`d particularly like to acknowledge the fantastic horn playing of @eddie_henning15, not least for the solo in the Tchaikovsky; the many fine turns on flute and piccolo by @johnfaria.music; and above all, the excellent conducting of @lewis_liv, the student conductor for the Peer Gynt suite.
Other lucky students will have two more years of music performance at the @uniofsurrey still to look forward to, and there are many exciting things already in the planning stages for next year – so watch this space!
While many students from @surreydmm were working hard to make tonight`s University Orchestra concert such a success (more on that in just a moment), halfway across the country, second-year BMus Music student @williambrooke05 was performing an organ recital at @officialshrewsburyabbey.
William`s programme was as follows:
Jean Langlais (1907-1991): Hymne d`Actions de grâces `Te deum` J.S. Bach (1685-1750): Prelude and Fugue in G, BWV 541 Herbert Howells (1892–1983): Master Tallis’s Testament from Six Pieces for Organ L.-N. Clérambault (1676-1749): Suite du Deuxième Ton: Plein Jeu – Duo – Trio – Basse de Cromorne – Flûtes – Récit de Nazard – Caprice Cecilia McDowall (1951-): Church bells beyond the stars C.M. Widor (1844-1957): Marche Pontificale from Organ Symphony No.1
William has been Senior Organ Scholar at St Mary the Virgin, Ewell, Surrey since 2023, and has played the organ for services at Margham Abbey, Guildford, Llandaff and Wells Cathedrals. At Surrey, he receives organ lessons at @guildfordcathedral from the sub-organist, Asher Oliver.
Sadly I couldn`t be both there and in Guildford, but I`ve been fortunate enough to hear William give very fine performances of all the pieces in today`s recital on previous occasions.
Our Shropshire correspondent, Margaret Roberts, was in attendance and tells me that it was an impressive recital. Congratulations William, from Margaret, myself, and all at the @uniofsurrey!
It was such a delight to attend the Film Production and Broadcast Engineering degree show 2025 earlier today, hosted by @surreydmm at the @uniofsurrey.
This annual event showcases the work of final-year @filmeng_surrey students, supported by students on lower years as well as those in cognate @surreydmm programmes including @tonmeister_surrey and Music.
Work presented included a screening of highlights from the @strictlycomesurrey broadcast earlier in the year, as well as a brilliant stop motion animation.
It was wonderful to see such a large audience of invited guests, staff and students of @uniofsurrey, and industry representatives from major film and broadcasting companies experiencing the facilities that the University has to offer, including our £2M television studio.
The screenings ended with a touching presentation of gifts from the students to the staff, thanking them for all their support and expert tuition over the past three or four years of their degree – a lovely tribute to the transformational teaching on offer here at @uniofsurrey.
Many congratulations to all students and staff on @filmeng_surrey for yet another excellent degree show!
This weekend`s `Surrey Celebrates Jane Austen at 250` event co-hosted by @surreydmm, @surreysll, and @guildfordschoolofacting has offered (alongside the performance of an adaptation of Mansfield Park) a series of free public talks by @uniofsurrey experts held yesterday and today, including my own `Jane Austen and Music`, illustrated with vocal performances by @michellewongwtw.
In our 35-minute talk given to a 40-strong audience, I spoke about the role of music in Austen`s life and novels, including her piano-playing, her musical heroines, scenes from her novels in which music features, and the sociocultural context for female domestic music-making at the time. Michelle and I performed songs including `Du Ring an meinem Finger’ from Schumann`s Frauenliebe und -leben and an arrangement of the Irish folk song `Robin Adair`, and I also played Ethel Smyth`s `Aus der Jugendzeit!! E. v. H.` for piano solo and offered various other musical demonstrations at the keyboard.
It was indeed an honour to be involved in a literary event that included the Head of School, Dean of Faculty, and one of our Directors of Research, all of whom are academics of literature, which I am not. Michelle, as ever, did the University great credit as a representative of the student body. Our sartorial efforts were very much appreciated as well – I gather we`ve set something of a gold standard for academic presentations!
For further information about the events run by the University to celebrate Austen in the year of the 250th anniversary of her birth, including this weekend`s full programme, please see the following links:
Some photos from the fantastic Ensembles Concert hosted by @surreydmm at the @uniofsurrey yesterday evening.
Six ensembles performed in total: @ussu.stringorchestra, @uos_concertband, @uosurreybrass, the new elite vocal group A Cappella, the band Jasmine 7, and @ussu_jazzo.
Between playing viola in String Orchestra and being conscripted into Concert Band on oboe and cor anglais, I thought I was being kept busy (hence why I didn`t manage to photograph all the groups), but suffice to say there were some students who were much more heavily involved than I was, and on several instruments!
All in all, it was an excellent concert and truly extraordinary to witness the large number of musicians from across the @uniofsurrey engaged in @surreyunion society ensembles and the wealth of talent on offer in the various groups. It was wonderful to welcome around 100 people in the audience as well.
Many congratulations to all ensemble leaders, musicians, and organisers!
The @uniofsurrey`s celebration of Jane Austen at 250 this weekend includes my talk `Jane Austen and Music` (at 12:55pm on Saturday 31 May), illustrated with music performed by @michellewongwtw and myself. We`ll be looking at Austen`s passion for piano-playing and the music in her collections, and how this relates to her novels with their many musical characters. To book, see the link below.
Surrey Celebrates Jane Austen at 250 Fri 30 May, 4.30-6pm: Talks & Discussion Sat 31 May, 11.15am-1.30pm: Talks & Discussion
Venue: Performing Arts Technology Studios, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH
Some photos of our undergraduate Music students and scholarship recipients performing at our Benefactors` Concert of classical music yesterday at @surreydmm at the @uniofsurrey.
This is an annual event held in honour of our various benefactors whose generous gifts and donations enable us to invest in the development of our amazingly talented students (as I said in thanking them during the introduction to the concert).
The full programme was as follows:
Daniel Sharff @djshff28, trumpet Margaret Roberts, piano R. Newton: Dimitri
Toby Loeffen-Ames, voice Margaret Roberts, piano G. Faurè: Après un Rêve
@johnfaria.music, flute Margaret Roberts, piano E. York Bowen: Flute Sonata Op. 120. I Allegro non troppo
@jess.townson (violin), @seth.nel_ (cello), @theohosking (piano) Schubert’s Piano Trio in Eb Major, Op.100, second movement
@benthorn_music, trumpet Theo Hosking, piano H. Senée: Concertino for trumpet and piano. II Romance
@charlotte.ray11, flute Margaret Roberts, piano I. Clarke: Hypnosis
Jess Townson, violin Margaret Roberts, piano R. Schumann: Fantasiestücke Op. 73 No. 3
@eddie_henning15, horn Margaret Roberts, piano R. Strauss: Horn concerto No. 1, Op. 11. III Allegro
With grateful thanks to Margaret Roberts, who, as piano accompanist and one of our piano tutors, had a hand in every item in the concert.
(Apologies for the quality of the photos; I was quite far away from the performers and needed to zoom in.)
Yesterday saw an amazing concert of chamber music given by ensembles formed by undergraduate and postgraduate @uniofsurrey @surreydmm students at the @guildfordcathedral Coffee Concerts, featuring music by Burgmüller, Schubert, Cui, Wagner, and Schumann.
Our fabulous performers were: @sethlyonsmusic (guitar) and @soapydiddleydoo87 (euphonium); @jess.townson (violin), @theohosking (piano), and @seth.nel_ (cello); Xinjun Zhang (piano), Arthur Chan (violin), and Emily Ho (flute); @michellewongwtw (voice) and @williambrooke05 (piano); @freya.wfield (violin), Torin Barnfather (piano), and @seth.nel_ (cello).
Congratulations to all on an excellent performance! It was wonderful to hear you give a free public concert to such an appreciative audience, and lovely for you to have been invited to play in such an incredible venue.
Today`s graduation ceremonies at the @uniofsurrey included awards made to @surreydmm MMus Music and PhD graduates as well as the first cohort of our MA Film, Animation and Digital Arts degree.
It was lovely to have caught up afterwards with some of the MMus cohort, partly because I knew them well from having taught them last year, but also because one of their number, @o_direndarbaz_o, gave a beautiful speech to the ceremony as the invited graduate speaker.
The other photos show our inaugural @fada.surrey cohort (the first of many, given how successful the degree is proving to be) preparing to throw their caps in the air, as is the tradition; and MMus graduates @trumpet_luke, @petersn72 and Helen energetically doing so, leaping in the air at the same time!
For me it was a full circle moment: 25 years ago I shook hands with the then Head of Department as I received my MMus Music from @uniofsurrey in this very ceremony. Today I was on the other side of the handshake, warmly congratulating today`s MMus Music recipients as Head myself.
This ceremony also saw the honorary doctorate awarded to Steve Lillywhite, CBE, the five-time Grammy-winning record producer who has collaborated with U2, The Rolling Stones, The Killers and Talking Heads on several multi-platinum-selling albums, as well as producing The Pogues` timeless Christmas classic `Fairytale of New York`.
Many congratulations to all graduates, and to the staff who taught and supervised them! @surreyalumni #ForeverSurrey
The annual #SurreyExciTeS Excellence in Teaching Symposium took place at the @uniofsurrey today, on the theme of ‘Future-Ready Learning: AI, Inclusivity, Sustainability and Skills for Tomorrow’. #ExciTeS2025
In the course of the day, we heard from academics representing a range of different disciplines examining issues such as Generative AI in higher education, including my own paper ‘Integrating Generative AI in Academic Studies: Challenges and Opportunities’.
Surrey ExciTeS has been running since 2014 and this is the ninth conference at which I have given a presentation. My paper controversially asked whether, on balance, GenAI presents a challenge or an opportunity for the academic profession, drawing on my teaching innovations embedding (optional) GenAI use within my undergraduate popular music assessments in @surreydmm since 2023.
The abstract for my paper is as follows:
"Generative artificial intelligence represents arguably the single greatest challenge for the contemporary academic profession globally given its unparalleled capacity to instantaneously create untraceable text (and other data) in response to basic user prompts. But it is also a valuable tool offering vast potential to facilitate work in a wide range of professional contexts for which higher education prepares its students, suggesting that graduate employability would be greatly enhanced by incorporating its use within degree-level activity, whereby students learn to be effective AI prompters knowledgeable of the capabilities but also limitations of the software. This paper explores some of the threats—but also opportunities—associated with the use of Generative AI in university-level academic studies, from recent high-profile news stories of its use in UK higher education to reporting back on continuing endeavours to integrate positive and responsible use of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in undergraduate academic studies in music at the University of Surrey."
I was delighted to have been invited to be the guest speaker earlier in the month at @paint.yourstory, a charity event held at University Hall on the @uniofsurrey campus to raise funds for SEED @seedsupportuk, a UK-based eating disorder support charity.
The event included painting and other artistic activities, games such as the ever-popular bingo and dodgeball, a raffle, live music and dancing, as well as me speaking for a few minutes about why these kinds of charities are important and why we should support them.
Months in the planning and admirably well organised, `Paint Your Story` brought over 100 people together, involved many different student societies, and raised an impressive £640. Many congratulations to all involved!
Announcing the publication of the essay collection `Reading Texts in Music and Literature of the Long Nineteenth Century`, edited by Phyllis Weliver and Katharine Ellis, to be published by @boydellandbrewer in June 2025.
In addition to myself and the editors, contributors include Charlotte Bentley, Philip Burnett, Alisa Clapp-Itnyre, Elicia Clements, Jeremy Coleman, Sarah Collins, Daniel M. Grimley, Elizabeth Helsinger, Fraser Riddell, Emma Sutton, and Shafquat Towheed – a stellar line-up!
My own chapter, written in 2019, is entitled `The Music of the Women`s Suffrage Movement` and examines the lyrics and music of songs associated with the Anglo-American campaign for votes for women: from Ethel Smyth`s suffragette anthem `The March of the Women`, to practices of rewriting the lyrics to well-known song melodies, to suffrage parlour songs and popular music, to anti-suffrage songs.
Here`s the full description from the publisher`s website:
`This collection offers students a practical guide to understanding the ways music and literature intersect and the influence of each on the other, as well as developing methods of study.
This is the first coursebook to help students explore the many types of relationship that exist between music and literature when studied in historical or aesthetic contexts. It fosters interdisciplinary study among students in these subject areas and helps to break down the barrier of music as seeming "impenetrable" to students outside musicology.
Each chapter presents a case-study text first, followed by a short summary that sets out the challenges of approach and interpretation involved. A section on background then places the featured case-study in historical or aesthetic context, leading to a detailed discussion. The book offers a learning experience combining the methodological in music/text relationships with the substantive or thematic.`
I’m so proud of the @surreydmm students and staff who made Strictly Come Surrey such a success last Sunday. If you’re looking for something different to watch over the Spring vacation, why not check out the full broadcast: https://www.youtube.com/live/fIR9Z-0T9ms?t=588s
@strictlycomesurrey has been going for nearly ten years and pairs professional dancers from the @surreyunion Ballroom and Latin Dance Club @surreybldc with less experienced “celebrity” @uniofsurrey staff and students.
Our brilliant students from the BEng Film Production and Broadcast Engineering @filmeng_surrey and BSc Music and Sound Recording (Tonmeister) @iosr_surrey degrees took charge of the video and sound, assuming roles including direction, production, graphics, EVS, vision mixing, camera operation, studio crew, sound engineering, sound mixing, in-house video, VT production, and many more.
@surreyunion student societies @surreystagecrew and @stagtvsurrey designed the lighting and set, and provided additional gallery crew and camera operators, while live music was performed by members of the superb @uosbigband, many of whom are @surreydmm students.
I’d also like to acknowledge the contribution and dedication of our amazing @surreydmm staff, including academics Susan Pratt and Alan Haigh, both of whom served as Broadcast Consultants, as well as our TV Studio Manager @samsarjudeen.
What really stood out to me was how Strictly Come Surrey benefits from an impressive roster of industry partners including NEP, Vivid Broadcast, Siyan Ltd, WLX, and Delta Live, giving @uniofsurrey students real-world experience of working in an outside broadcast environment with professional equipment, as well as embedding employability into the curriculum and preparing students for industry placements and graduate destinations. What an incredible opportunity for them.
Congratulations to the many students and staff involved in such a fantastic event! #strictly #uniofsurrey #surreyunion
It was a delight to catch up, a couple of months ago, with one of my former @uniofsurrey students, Otto Redman (those of you who recognise this student from the photo will know that this is a pen name).
Otto studied his BMus Music here at @surreydmm, proceeding to the PhD under my supervision, for which he was examined in 2020 just a couple of weeks before the UK went into lockdown.
Since then, he’s had great success as an author of horror-genre books, influenced by the likes of Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, H.P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Allan Poe, as well as B-movie horror films of the 1960s and 1970s.
His debut novel, The Vampire of Portsmouth, offers an intriguing fantasy story that reads very engagingly, which pleases me given the years we worked together improving his prose style. His second book, Sarah’s Cats, is a substantial achievement at 750 pages in length, so it’s going to take me somewhat longer to read to the end!
Last Saturday`s @uniofsurrey @surreydmm University Orchestra and Choir concert at @htsmguildford Holy Trinity Church, Guildford was one of the best in recent years!
Congratulations to our two amazing conductors, Russell Keable and @amykearsleymusic, both of whom really know how to get the most out of our students and invited guests.
The string session excelled themselves under the leadership of our wonderful violin tutor (and soloist in the Rimsky-Korsakov), Caroline Balding. There was much fantastic playing elsewhere in the orchestra as well: horn, woodwind, brass, percussion. The choir sounded beautiful, too!
The concert was very well-attended, with a full balcony (most of them on their feet for the final applause) in addition to a packed floor.
The programme was as follows:
Mozart, Overture to Don Giovanni Rachmaninov, ‘Bogoroditse Devo’ from All-Night Vigil Fauré, Requiem (Agnus Dei, Libera me, In paradisum) Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherazade
Both the Mozart and the Rimsky-Korsakov had some lovely oboe melodies for me to play (as well as cor anglais, in the latter) and it was great to join the choir for the other items as well, and swell the ranks of the tenors.
It was kind of some of the students to invite me to join their group photograph afterwards, too, although they did insist on putting me in the middle!
I`m very much looking forward to our next University Orchestra and Choir concert in University Hall on campus on Saturday 7 June, for which the repertoire will include Grieg`s Peer Gynt Suite No. 1 with a student conductor.
This Friday sees the main @ussu_jazzo concert of the year by USSU Jazz Orchestra aka "JazzO", featuring special guests @uosurreybrass the University of Surrey Brass Ensemble!
Join them on 11 April at 7:30pm in PATS Studio 1 in @surreydmm at the @uniofsurrey, for an evening of live music ranging from traditional jazz standards to more contemporary rock and pop classics. Refreshments will be available.
Volume Ten of the Journal of Imaginary Research is out today! Its theme is `Flourishing`, and it includes a contribution from myself. The journal is a highly popular and imaginative publication comprising short creative writings in the micro-fiction genre of the research abstract. The academics who contribute to it are encouraged to give voice to their creativity and humour through writing with playful irony on aspects of their profession.
My own contribution, entitled `Well-Handeled education: A longitudinal study of the benefits of centralising music within the curriculum`, appears on pp. 74-75 of the journal and combines factual information (the medieval Quadrivium) and a real-life study (Guhn, Emerson and Gouzouasis, 2020) with fictitious, generously-funded research revealing findings that have actually been known for centuries – that students` engagement with music can be beneficial to other aspects of their intellectual development as well.
The @uosbigband, our award-winning 21-piece function band, presents an evening of music of the stage and screen in PATS Studio 1 at @surreydmm @uniofsurrey on Saturday 5 April at 7pm!
They will be playing a selection of pieces from well-known films, musicals, television shows, and video games. Doors will open from 6:30pm and refreshments will be available.
‘Paint Your Story’, a charity event for SEED (an eating disorder support service), takes place in University Hall at the @uniofsurrey on Monday 7 April, 4:30-8:30pm.
It will offer a painting class, live music, guest speakers (including myself), and other activities and games.
For further information, please see @paint.yourstory.
This was lovely to receive earlier today – I usually rank second or third most read in my department on @researchgate_official, but last week my contributions were the most read.
Which is good considering I`ve never actually uploaded any of my work there myself! I don`t know who is linking some of my publications to my profile (my guess is that somebody at the @uniofsurrey is managing this aspect of my profile on my behalf) but it`s not me.
And that`s a wrap! I`ve spent 20 hours in PATS Studio 1 at @surreydmm @uniofsurrey this weekend, supervising the recording of an album of @gsa_musicaltheatre`s recent production of James Gilbert and Julian More`s musical `Grab Me a Gondola` with Tonmeister students from @iosr_surrey.
This unprecedented collaboration between @surreydmm and GSA means that students of both benefit from the other: @iosr_surrey students get the opportunity to record our amazing GSA students (the West End stars of tomorrow), while GSA students gain valuable studio experience courtesy of our talented Tonmeister students (the Grammy/Emmy/Bafta/Oscar winners of tomorrow). And they all receive a credit on a commercial release prior to graduation, once this album appears on the @stagedoorrecords label. There aren`t many recording studios at which this album could have been recorded as we needed to use @surreydmm`s two Steinway pianos to be played simultaneously.
It`s been a real pleasure to work with @gsa_musicaltheatre and my friend and colleague Stewart Nicholls, Programme Leader for BA Musical Theatre at GSA and PI to my Co-I on this project, which entailed raising the money to record the album, planning the recording sessions themselves, and securing a record label on which to release the album.
Although my involvement in these sessions was largely limited to following the score and identifying the need for retakes, it nonetheless drew on the extensive experience I have gained over the years on either side of the microphone, working with both Tonmeister students and professional labels such as @retrospectopera and Lorelt. I`m immensely privileged to have had the opportunity to gain all this experience by virtue of my role at the @uniofsurrey.
After a full two days of studio sessions and over 300 takes, we`ve finally recorded the album`s 27 tracks and now it`s over to the Tonmeisters, led by final-year student @mark.hennessy_02, to edit and mix it all down. Congratulations to all involved on an immensely productive weekend, and I`m very much looking forward to hearing the final product!
The @uniofsurrey Chamber Choir and Chamber Orchestra gave a free concert at Guildford United Reformed Church earlier today, with a programme including choral items such as Bach’s Cantata No. 144 (‘Nimm, was dein ist, und gehe ihn’), the opening chorus of Bach’s St John Passion, and pieces by Mozart, Bruckner, and Anerio; solo vocal items including Mahler’s ‘Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen’; and instrumental pieces including Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2.
It also finally saw me realise a dream I`ve had my whole life, to play three different members of the oboe family in the same concert: solo oboe in Bach`s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 (and other pieces), the oboe d`amore obbligato in Bach`s aria `Genügsamkeit ist ein Schatz in diesem Leben` (Cantata No. 144), and the cor anglais solos in Mahler`s `Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen` (Rückert-Lieder). Thank you @howarthoflondon for making this happen!
Many thanks to conductor Philip Singleton, accompanist Margaret Roberts, Choir Manager @michellewongwtw, Tonmeisters Matthew and Matthew who recorded the concert, and Gillian the Musical Director of the URC for all their work in bringing this concert (and my personal dream) to fruition. Congratulations to vocal soloists Nico, Claire, Michelle, and Monroe; to instrumental soloists @johnfaria.music (flute), @lewis_liv (violin), and Phil (piccolo trumpet); and to all the student singers and instrumentalists, on an excellent performance!
UNIVERSITY OF SURREY CHAMBER CHOIR AND CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Conductor – Philip Singleton Accompanist – Margaret Roberts
Sunday 9 March 2025, 3pm
Guildford United Reformed Church, 83 Portsmouth Road, GU2 4BS
J.S. Bach – ‘Herr, unser Herrscher’ from St John Passion Mahler – ‘Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen’ from Rückert Lieder (soloist: Michelle Wong) Anerio – ‘Christus factus est ‘ Bruckner – ‘Christus factus est’ from Vier Graduale
(interval)
J.S. Bach – Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 (soloists: Philip Singleton, John Faria, Christopher Wiley, Lewis Livingstone) J.S. Bach – Cantata BWV 144, ‘Nimm, was dein ist, und gehe hin’ (soloists: Claire Middleton, Sofia Nico) Mozart – ‘Ave verum corpus’
Admission free, with retiring collection (free parking)
The ListenQueer Guildford app is a collaboration between @surreysll, @surreyhistorycentre, and various other experts from the @uniofsurrey and beyond, including myself from @surreydmm talking about Dame Ethel Smyth. I thoroughly enjoyed being interviewed outside St Nicolas` Church Hall, Guildford last August by @lena_mattheis, who has done an amazing job of polishing our discussion into a ten-minute audio!
Dr @lena_mattheis, one of my @surreysll colleagues, is running a `queer time travel` walking event this Wednesday afternoon, 26 February, in Guildford, featuring several contributions to the ListenQueer app including my own. Meet your time travel guide in front of the White House pub in Guildford town centre at 3:30pm. No registration required! 😀 🌈 👣
The ListenQueer app (listenqueer.co.uk) will be officially launched on 31 May at Queer Britain in London. My favourite line from my own interview has got to be `sexuality is complex and we [now] have a nuanced understanding of the granularity of sexuality that is not encompassed by a single term`. Thank you, Lena, for the stimulating conversation!
It was such an honour to have been invited to Kent Physics Centre at @unikentlive a couple of weeks ago to give a free public talk on `Music and Space`, attended by some 70 people including both scientists and musicians.
As a musicologist and musician fascinated by physics and space, it was most flattering that I was taken seriously enough in science to have been asked to give an external talk for the @institute_of_physics – my fourth in the space of a year!
The @uniofsurrey is No. 1 in the UK for Music ( @guardian University Guide 2025) and No. 2 for Cinematics (National Student Survey 2024).
With the UCAS deadline at 6pm tomorrow (29 January), are YOU a student looking for a high-quality course in Music and Media at one of the leading universities in the UK?
The undergraduate courses we have to offer include the following:
• BMus(Hons) Music • BMus(Hons) Creative Music Technology • BSc(Hons)/BMus(Hons) Music and Sound Recording (Tonmeister) • BEng(Hons) Film Production and Broadcast Engineering
My @institute_of_physics talk this evening on `Music and Space` at Kent Physics Centre, @unikentlive, hosted by @samtcarr and co-organized by Manuel Marques. A free public lecture with performances on oboe, organ, and other instruments. @SurreyDMM @UniofSurrey @UniofSurreyCPE
"In this talk, Dr Christopher Wiley (University of Surrey) explores some of the many connections between music and space. First, he discusses famous examples of people who have been interested in both space and music, including several contemporaries as well as Gustav Holst (The Planets), William Herschel (discovered Uranus), and Johannes Kepler (the music of the spheres). Second, he looks at some of the music that has been sent to and from space, both recent broadcasts (live and recorded) as well as the contents of Voyager’s Golden Records. Finally, he investigates composers’ representations of space through some of the most recognisable musical themes in the history of film and television, including Star Wars, Star Trek, and Doctor Who. In the course of this talk, he will perform music by Herschel and demonstrate the theremin, an electronic musical instrument commonly associated with the creation of otherworldly sounds."
As part of this event, I performed a keyboard piece by Herschel on chamber organ as well as my arrangement of the final movement of one of Herschel`s oboe concertos accompanied by @samtcarr at the piano.
Following the recent release of Wicked: Part One, yesterday I gave a one-hour interview on `The History of Movie Musicals` as a Talking Point for `Overnights` on Australia`s ABC Radio (@abcaustralia), hosted by Rod Quinn with producer Alisdair G. Bates.
It`s a radio show on which I was interviewed once previously, in May 2024, on posthumous releases of popular music, so it was an honour to be invited back. Rod is a very knowledgeable presenter and expertly structures the discussion, and Alisdair is meticulous in his preparation.
It`s always a pleasure to talk to the media about areas of music that I enjoy teaching in @surreydmm. It means that @uniofsurrey students are learning from the very same people who are at the forefront of contributing to public discourse on the subject.
I`m very much hoping that some of my Musical Theatre students will want to listen to the show, which covers ground we didn`t have time to explore in our lectures. Thankfully an edited version (with the discussion intact, but the music examples removed for copyright reasons) is available online. Listen again here:
"Movie musicals have been entertaining audiences for nearly a 100 years… but what is the difference between a movie musical and a stage musical?
Rod spoke with Dr. Christopher Wiley, Head of Music and Media and Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Surrey, to find out more."
(Apologies for the quality of the accompanying image; I`m not in my office at the moment, but wanted to post as soon as the edited audio recording appeared online.)
My final post of the year is a throwback to my talk on ‘The Science of Musical Instruments’ given back in April, aimed at KS2 students, as part of the @institute_of_physics lecture series run at the @uniofsurrey.
This event inspired me to put together another talk, on music and space, for World Space Week in October, which I expanded for an Open University Fusion Event, and which I’ll present again next month at the @unikentlive Physics Centre: https://research.kent.ac.uk/kent-physics-centre/music-and-space/
What a busy and eventful year 2024 has been! Here are some of the highlights:
• I became Head of Music and Media at the @uniofsurrey, the No. 1 university in the UK for Music in the @Guardian University Guide 2025.
• My 400-page co-edited The Routledge Companion to Music, Autoethnography, and Reflexivity, was published in December.
• I delivered the Keynote at the two-day international conference `Dame Ethel Smyth: Connections, Culture, and Context` at @dublincityuniversity, Ireland.
• I presented at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting (the largest such conference in the world) in Philadelphia, PA.
• I brought The Second Biennial International Conference of Music and the University to the @uniofsurrey.
• I continued to play with the University Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra, and String Orchestra, to sing with the University Choir, and to perform in various chamber ensembles and as a soloist.
• I co-organised (with @drsamanthaege) a celebration of the 75th birthday of the conductor and composer Odaline de la Martinez at @uniofsurrey, comprising a concert, pre-concert talk, and the unveiling of the University’s statue of Ethel Smyth.
• I organised and delivered a two-hour talk on Ethel Smyth at the @guildfordinstitute, incorporating half a dozen live performances from myself and others (including @michellewongwtw and @johnfaria.music).
• I received the Faculty Teacher of the Year award at the @uniofsurrey.
There’s so much more I could say, but for now, I’ll simply look back on a successful year and be very thankful for all the friends and collaborators without whom I could not have achieved any of it. Happy New Year 2025!
I’ve been truly honoured to have taken up the role of Head of Music and Media at the University of Surrey earlier this year.
Why? Because the @uniofsurrey is No. 1 in the UK for Music (@guardian University Guide 2025)…
…and No. 2 for Cinematics (National Student Survey 2024)!
With one month to go until the UCAS deadline, are YOU a student looking for a high-quality course in Music and Media at one of the leading universities in the UK?
The undergraduate courses we have to offer include the following:
• BMus(Hons) Music • BMus(Hons) Creative Music Technology • BSc(Hons)/BMus(Hons) Music and Sound Recording (Tonmeister) • BEng(Hons) Film Production and Broadcast Engineering
The @uniofsurrey is ranked FIRST in the UK for our Music courses in the @guardian University Guide 2025. We reckon that’s worth a drumroll.
You can study a Music or Creative Music Technology BMus here at undergraduate level, or Music and Sound Recording (Tonmeister) and there’s still time to apply before the UCAS deadline on the 29th January 2025.
The 22 chapters include my single-authored chapter `An autoethnography of designing an undergraduate music module on Adele`s 25 album`, and my co-authored editorial introduction `Music, autoethnography, and reflexivity: An introductory conversation` (with Peter Gouzouasis).
With 406 pages and 67 illustrations, it might be a little large for a stocking-filler – but it`s a worthy Christmas gift nonetheless!
Last week saw the ceremony for The Vice-Chancellor`s Awards for Staff Excellence 2024 at the @uniofsurrey. Having received the Teacher of the Year Award for FABSS (the Faculty of Arts, Business and Social Sciences, comprising over half of the University numerically) earlier in the semester, I was a finalist in the University Teacher of the Year category.
My citation (given in full at the above link) was as follows:
"Dr Christopher Wiley, Senior Lecturer and Head of Music and Media
Christopher is the University’s longest-standing National Teaching Fellow and Principal Fellow of AdvanceHE, and holds postgraduate degrees in both Academic Practice and Music. His pedagogic research has been widely published, and he has delivered learning and teaching workshops at a dozen UK universities and conference papers across Europe and beyond. He is known for teaching innovations including patchworks texts, incorporating AI use in assessment, and electronic voting systems, for which he served for ten years as International Distinguished Educator with Turning Technologies.
In 2024, he demonstrated worldwide leadership in his field through bringing the three-day ‘Music and the University’ biennial international conference to Surrey. Contributing to 25 different modules last year alone, his current MEQ average is 97%, and he regularly performs with several Surrey student music ensembles on multiple instruments.
As BMus Music Programme Leader from 2019–24, he has been key to Surrey’s success as No. 1 University in the UK for Music in two national league tables."
Some photos from the final rehearsal for yesterday`s big end-of-semester University Orchestra and Choir concert at the @uniofsurrey, hosted by @surreydmm and conducted by Russell Keable, @amykearsleymusic, and @lewis_liv.
The programme included Sibelius`s Finlandia, Berlioz`s Roman Carnival Overture, `Autumn` from Glazunov`s ballet The Seasons, Prokofiev`s Lieutenant Kijé, John Rutter`s Shepherd`s Pipe Carol, Leroy Anderson`s Sleigh Ride, and some unaccompanied choir items.
It was really great to have offered such a full programme with a 55-piece orchestra (almost all of whom were regular members, with only three deps brought in to fill the gaps) and a 50-strong choir. What a treat for the 300 audience members, particularly since – like many of our events – it was offered as a free public concert!
Many congratulations to all the students who came together for such a full and fantastic programme, performed with a real sense of camaraderie and energy – not to mention to an impressively high standard. Such a wonderful experience for you all!
Photos courtesy of @joplaistowe (orchestra in rehearsal) and @michellewongwtw (choir ready to perform).
Yesterday evening saw the biannual Ensembles Concert at the @uniofsurrey, hosted by @surreydmm in PATS Studio One. The large audience was treated to four student-led @surreyunion ensembles comprising many talented students, a number of whom were performing in more than one group and/or on more than one instrument.
The programme was remarkably varied, from film music such as Austin Powers and The Polar Express, to popular songs including ‘Anti-Hero’ and ‘Eleanor Rigby’, to the beautiful ‘Londonderry Air’, to seasonal favourites ‘Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town’, ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday’, and some traditional carols.
The ensembles that performed were Concert Band (@uos_concertband, conducted by @johnfaria.music), Jazz Orchestra (@ussu_jazzo, conducted by @eddie_henning15), String Orchestra (@ussu.stringorchestra, conducted by @lewis_liv), and Brass Ensemble (@uosurreybrass). The photos posted here show the latter three ensembles.
Congratulations to everybody involved on a fantastic concert!
Also yesterday was our biannual Music Project concert at @surreydmm @uniofsurrey – this semester`s theme was `Improvisation`.
The concert featured a wide range of music including a theme and variations for Japanese shamisen, some eighteenth-century opera, popular song arrangements for voice and other instruments including an ABBA medley, and several original student compositions.
Members of the @surreydmm University Chamber Choir and @uosurreybrass Brass Ensemble carolling outside University Library on Stag Hill campus at the @uniofsurrey yesterday lunchtime, conducted by @michellewongwtw.
What I really loved about this informal performance (other than hearing the students singing and playing) was the number of Music and Media staff who came out to listen, in addition to students from all years. I wasn`t counting, but Tom, Alan, Milton, John, Russell and Inja were all there at some point.
With 22 chapters (including one by myself, and a co-authored editorial introduction), 406 pages, and 67 illustrations, it certainly was a mammoth task to bring this to fruition – so it`s great to see it finally about to hit the shelves!
(This is my sixth book published since 2019, but who`s counting…)
The first formal concert of the year by our amazing @uosbigband will be their Christmas Concert this evening, at 7pm (doors open at 6:30pm) in PATS Studio One at the @uniofsurrey @surreydmm @iosr_surrey.
Do go if you can – it will be brilliant! They have some great tunes lined up and it will be a fantastic way to see in December in style and really get into the Christmas spirit.
Incredibly, this will be the second @surreydmm concert of the day – our @uosurreybrass Brass Ensemble is performing at St-Martha-on-the-Hill, Chilworth, Guildford at 1pm today (free admission). Music is definitely thriving at @uniofsurrey!
The @uniofsurrey certainly set a high bar for carol services this year! The full resources of the University Chamber Choir, University Chamber Orchestra, and University of Surrey Brass Ensemble were assembled yesterday for the annual University Carol Service in @guildfordcathedral.
The Carol Service featured three delightful compositions by @surreydmm students — `Love Came Down at Christmas Time` by @michellewongwtw, `New Light, New Year!` by @o_direndarbaz_o, and `Church Bells` by @claire_middleton_music — as well as `The Oxen` by conductor Dr Phil Singleton and Phil`s arrangement of Adolphe Adam`s `Cantique de Noël` (O, Holy Night), all performed by the University Chamber Choir.
The University Chamber Orchestra accompanied the latter two pieces as well as four congregational carols, with second-year BMus Music student @williambrooke05 at the Cathedral organ throughout (including a brilliantly performed voluntary presenting `O Come, All Ye Faithful` in the style of Widor`s Toccata). @uosurreybrass treated congregants to a series of Christmas tunes during the half-hour before the service, before first-year @iosr_surrey student Claire Middleton beautifully sang the traditional solo first verse of `Once in Royal David`s City` to herald the start of proceedings.
Sixty talented student musicians comprising three University ensembles, coming together to make music and lead the community in a celebration of the festive season… this is the true meaning of Christmas. Congratulations to everybody involved!
With thanks to @sethlyons07, @o_direndarbaz_o, and @alexia00002019 for providing the photos.
The brilliant @surreydmm University Chamber Choir and @uosurreybrass, performing Christmas music at the annual @uniofsurrey `Surrey Switch On` event in Austin Pearce Piazza on campus earlier today, during which over 10,000 glittering Christmas lights were switched on, to the delight of hundreds of students in attendance.
What was really amazing about this event is that it was very much student-led, including the conductor @michellewongwtw (a MMus Music student and Chamber Choir manager) and the pianist @theohosking, and the University of Surrey Brass founded and organised by @soapydiddleydoo87 and others (great to see recent graduate @trumpet_luke returning to play as well). It`s wonderful to see students engaging in extra-curricular activity purely for the love of their subject, and I consider myself very lucky to be working at an institution where this does indeed happen on a semi-regular basis.
Thanks also to Dr Neil March @trustthedoc (our music business lecturer) for his company so that I wasn`t supporting the students on my own. I think he appreciated that fully one-quarter of his class were involved in the performance, more so since he told me a couple of weeks ago that he`d love to see them perform, which he now has.
Yesterday a group of staff and students from @surreydmm presented a two-hour free public event at the @guildfordinstitute on composer, author, suffragette, and Surrey resident Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944), which I organized with funding from @uniofsurrey.
Performers included @surreydmm staff members Maureen Galea (piano) and myself (oboe, chamber organ), students @michellewongwtw (voice) and @johnfaria.music (flute), and members of the @uniofsurrey Chamber Choir, directed by Phil Singleton. The works performed were as follows:
Ethel Smyth, ‘Laggard Dawn’ and ‘The March of the Women’, Nos. 1 and 3 from Songs of Sunrise Ethel Smyth, ‘Aus der Jugendzeit!! E. v. H.’ Ethel Smyth, ‘Nocturne (Canon in Gegen-Bewegung)’ Ethel Smyth, ‘O glaub mir, nie fühlt’ ich solch Noth und Sorg’’ from Der Wald Ethel Smyth, Overture from The Boatswain’s Mate (piano transcription) Ethel Smyth, ‘Two Interlinked French Folk Melodies’ from Entente Cordiale (trio arrangement) Ethel Smyth, ‘Prelude on a Traditional Irish Air’
I linked these performances with a series of short talks introducing the music presented alongside an outline of Smyth`s life and her connections to the county of Surrey, including the three houses where she lived and her recently unveiled statue in Woking town centre. The event was held as part of the Being Human Festival 2024.
Earlier today I presented a one-hour talk on `Music and Space` at the @theopenuniversity Fusion Event hosted at the @uniofsurrey in collaboration with the University`s Physics Society and in liaison with the @institute_of_physics.
I greatly enjoyed talking to a room full of scientists about William Herschel, Holst`s The Planets, the music of the spheres, Voyager`s Golden Records, instruments played by astronauts in space, the music of Star Wars, Star Trek, and Doctor Who, and much more besides!
In the course of the presentation, I also performed a piece by Herschel on the @surreydmm chamber organ, and demonstrated our theremin.
It was lovely to see my former student @fiorefurore98 there as well, and @alexia00002019 whose dedication to music, science, and the intersections between the two knows no bounds.
For those of you who may be confused reading this, believing that today I was giving a completely different talk, on Ethel Smyth at the @guildfordinstitute, you`re absolutely right – but that wasn`t until the afternoon, whereas this one took place in the morning! I`ll post about the later event once the photos have been circulated.
We hosted a highly successful event at @surreydmm @uniofsurrey this evening, which I co-organised, to celebrate the 75th birthday of internationally distinguished conductor, composer, record producer, and Surrey graduate Odaline de la Martinez.
I performed on oboe and cor anglais in a three-hour concert of music by Odaline de la Martinez and others, including University of Surrey Professor of Composition @stevegoss1 and winner of the 2024 Joyce Dixey Composition Competition award @n_b_scott.
Other performers included @drsamanthaege (piano), Caroline Balding (violin), Clare O’Connell (cello), Maureen Galea (piano), Margaret Roberts (piano), @lizzie_wb17 (flute), @vincentgodfrey93 (clarinet), @magi_in_milan (cello), Petar Jovanović (guitar), Jim Goss (cello), and the University Chamber Choir, directed by Philip Singleton.
It was truly great that there were so many Surrey music graduates (now active professionally) among the performers, including Maureen and Phil as well as all four members (Lizzie, myself, Vince, and Milan) of the quartet for flute, oboe, clarinet, and cello – we`re everywhere! It was a real honour for me to have played a duet with the distinguished cellist Clare O`Connell as well.
I also addressed the audience in a pre-concert talk, speaking alongside Samantha Ege, and participated in the unveiling (by Odaline and the sculptor, Christine Charlesworth) of the statue of Ethel Smyth recently installed outside our main concert space in @surreydmm.
Join @surreydmm @uniofsurrey staff and students for a talk about the life of composer, author, suffragette, and Surrey resident Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944), featuring performances of her chamber music, keyboard works, and songs, at @guildfordinstitute on Saturday 9 November, 3:30-5:30pm. Entry free, booking essential; further details below.
Landmarking Surrey’s Musical Heritage: Dame Ethel Smyth Saturday 9 November, 3:30-5:30pm The Guildford Institute, Ward Street, Guildford, Surrey GU1 4LH Public event, free entry
Dame Ethel Smyth was a pioneering composer of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a prolific author of biographical writing about herself and others, a leading suffragette, and for the majority of her life a resident of the county of Surrey.
This free public event (booking essential) combines performances of Smyth’s solo piano, instrumental, and vocal music linked by short talks situating them in their historical, cultural, and musical contexts. Join the University of Surrey’s Dr Christopher Wiley for a journey through Smyth’s life featuring discussion of selected musical works; her connections with Surrey and the three houses where she lived; her involvement with the suffragette movement; and the life-size-plus statue (pictured) recently installed in Woking town centre.
Whether you’re a fan of classical music, a local history enthusiast, or interested in the national campaign for the vote, this event will give you a deeper appreciation of Smyth and her lasting place in history, society, and culture.
Ethel Smyth, ‘Aus der Jugendzeit!! E. v. H.’ (for piano) Ethel Smyth, ‘O glaub mir, nie fühlt’ ich solch Noth und Sorg’’ from Der Wald Ethel Smyth, ‘Laggard Dawn’ and ‘The March of the Women’ from Songs of Sunrise Ethel Smyth, ‘Overture’ from The Boatswain’s Mate (piano transcription) Ethel Smyth, ‘Two Interlinked French Folk Melodies’ from Entente Cordiale (for flute, oboe, and piano) Ethel Smyth, ‘Prelude on a Traditional Irish Air’ (for organ)
Coming up this Thursday evening at the @uniofsurrey!
‘Odaline de la Martinez at 75’ Thursday 31 October, 7pm (pre-concert talk and unveiling of the Ethel Smyth statue at 6:15pm) PATS Studio 1, Stag Hill campus, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey GU2 7XH Public event, free entry
Join us for a celebration of the work of internationally acclaimed Cuban-American composer and conductor Odaline de la Martinez on the evening of her 75th birthday. This free concert will celebrate Martinez`s leading contribution to the championship of women composers, Latin-American music and contemporary composers in a programme of her music and those of other composers, performed by professional musicians with whom she has worked over the years as well as @surreydmm graduates and students.
Performers include @drsamanthaege (piano), Caroline Balding (violin), Clare O’Connell (cello), Maureen Galea (piano), Margaret Roberts (piano), Elizabeth Ward-Brown (flute), @dr_chris_wiley (oboe), @vincentgodfrey93 (clarinet), @magi_in_milan (cello), Noah Bodley Scott (voice), Petar Jovanovic (guitar), Jim Goss (cello), and the University Chamber Choir, directed by Philip Singleton. A full programme is available on the website.
I`m starting to make a habit of this! Today I was back at BBC Radio Surrey on the @uniofsurrey campus, less than a month since my last interview. I spoke to James Cannon on the Breakfast Show about two free public musical events coming up in the next couple of weeks:
‘Odaline de la Martinez at 75’ Thursday 31 October, 7-9pm (pre-concert talk 6:15pm) PATS Studio 1, Stag Hill campus, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey GU2 7XH @surreydmm
I wanted to share this from @bradleyvocalcoach, a student of mine at @surreydmm @uniofsurrey from a few years back, who returned to visit earlier today.
We decided to record a fun Instagram reel capturing the moment we met and started talking. Beyond deciding that he would walk in, we would shake hands and then sit down, nothing was scripted and we didn`t even discuss in advance what might happen.
This was recorded once, in a single take with no retakes, with a friend filming on a smartphone. All the chat, reminiscences, and laughter are genuine. Somebody`s done an amazing job on the editing!
And yes, I really did call @bradleyvocalcoach Surrey`s answer to Sam Smith! He sang `Writing`s on the Wall` for one of his performance assessments and it was just amazing.
Bradley is now a very successful and in-demand vocal coach who also records and releases material. You can find out more about him and his coaching here: https://www.bradleyvocalcoach.com/
Do follow him on social media as well – the techniques he uses to get the very best from his students are fascinating, so inventive, and well worth watching!
It`s always a real pleasure to welcome graduates back to @uniofsurrey. If there`s anybody else out there who would like to make a fun, if slightly corny, reel for our socials, please get in contact! 🙂
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Had an absolute pleasure visiting the University of Surrey @uniofsurrey @surreydmm today and catching up with the legend himself, Dr. Chris Wiley @dr_chris_wiley ! 🙌 Reminiscing about the good times at Surrey and reflecting on how this place and its staff helped shape my career path.
I will be back again soon, for sure!
A day filled with nostalgia, smiles, laughter and joy! (And a couple of embarrassing stories!) ✨
What`s better than one of our @uniofsurrey @surreydmm composers releasing new music? TWO of our composers releasing new music – on the same day!
@stevegoss1, Professor of Composition, released the triple album ‘Landscape and Memory’ (DXL1202) on the @deuxellesrecords label today. It is his most ambitious recording project yet, comprising recent works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, and solo instruments.
Artists that feature on the album include The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, The Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and guitarist John Williams. There will be a launch performance in London on 22 October.
Separately, our harmony lecturer @karakelyancomposer released `Starlight` today. This is the first single from her new piano album `Dreamland`, featuring all her own compositions, which will be released in its entirety on 28 February next year. The streaming link is here: https://platoon.lnk.to/kristina-arakelyan-starlight
The @uniofsurrey is hosting the classical concert `Odaline de la Martinez at 75` on Thursday 31 October, 7-9pm in PATS Studio 1. Odaline de la Martinez is an internationally distinguished conductor and composer, and Honorary Visiting Professor of the University.
The event will commence with a brief pre-concert talk by @drsamanthaege and myself at 6:15pm, during which the statue of Ethel Smyth newly installed outside the concert venue will be formally unveiled.
The concert will comprise works by Martinez and others, including our Professor of Composition, @stevegoss1. It will be performed by professional musicians with whom Martinez has worked over the years as well as staff, graduates and students of @surreydmm.
Performers include Samantha Ege (piano), Caroline Balding (violin), Clare O’Connell (cello), Maureen Galea (piano), Margaret Roberts (piano), Elizabeth Ward-Brown (flute), @dr_chris_wiley (oboe), @vincentgodfrey93 (clarinet), @magi_in_milan (cello), Noah Bodley Scott (voice), Petar Jovanovic (guitar), Jim Goss (cello), and the University Chamber Choir, directed by Philip Singleton. A full programme is available on the website.
A few photos from last week`s fantastic MMus Music recitals at @surreydmm @uniofsurrey: (L-R) Nina Peters (piano), Di (Michael) Shen (pop vocal performance), and Yen-Cheng (Luke) Lu (trumpet).
It was a real pleasure both hearing three excellent final recitals, and getting to know these talented students in various contexts over the course of the past year. Although I don`t usually have much contact with MMus students, the development of my teaching over the year coupled to my own performance activity meant that in reality our paths crossed many times!
Nina, it was great to play alongside you in Orchestra and String Orchestra (she`s also a violinist); Michael, I did enjoy helping you fix the players for your recitals (just look at how many students are onstage in the second photo – including Nina!); and @trumpet_luke, it was a real pleasure sitting virtually right next to you in Orchestra, and I`m sorry we never got to play Quiet City together.
There are other photos of the four of us, but since I didn`t take these, you`ll just have to use your imagination. 🙂
The @uniofsurrey and @institute_of_physics (@iopsouthcentral) takeover of the @tunsgatequarter, Guildford for @worldspaceweek took place earlier today and it was fantastic to have included Music so strongly within its activities!
Following last year`s quartet performance, we were asked to reprise our arrangements of space-themed music for two 45-minute sets. We formed a different quartet from last year comprising myself (oboe), @lewis_liv from @surreydmm (violin), @alexia00002019 from the School of Mathematics and Physics (viola), and @elisabeth_tu1 from @guildfordschoolofacting (cello).
We also organised a Music stall featuring information about Holst`s The Planets suite and Voyager`s Golden Records and demonstrating @surreydmm`s theremin, ably staffed throughout the day by two of our second-year BMus Music students, @m_reed257 and @joycelyn1221.
Finally, I was one of nine @uniofsurrey academics who gave 20-minute talks to members of the public as part of the event. My talk, on `Space & Music`, included my video performance of an excerpt of one of the organ works of William Herschel, who discovered Uranus, as well as looking at musical broadcasts from the International Space Station, and the music of television shows such as Star Trek and Doctor Who.
It`s always a delight to find ways to combine Music and Science in public engagement activity, as well as to give voice to my own fascination with science and space as a musician and musicologist. It was also great to have met several people who heard me speak at another @institute_of_physics event we held at @uniofsurrey earlier this year, `The Science of Musical Instruments`.
The @tunsgatequarter takeover was a very vibrant and well-attended day, and it was lovely to have been visited on the stall by @michellewongwtw and several of our friends from @ussu.stringorchestra as well!
It`s a busy time for Music at @uniofsurrey @surreydmm already! First the Community Orchestra performed Dvorak`s Symphony No. 8 on Sunday, then we heard three fantastic MMus recitals yesterday.
Tomorrow it`s the turn of @uosbigband, who are holding their first informal jam of the year, following the success of last year`s sessions! 🎹🎤🎸🥁🎺🎷🎶
Join @uosbigband in Wates Green room on campus on Friday 4 October. The jam is open to all – there will be a sign up list on the night for anyone to come up and play or sing.
Always a pleasure to be interviewed by BBC Radio Surrey. Today I spoke to James Cannon on the Breakfast Show about the Orchestra Day at @uniofsurrey this Sunday, 29 September (free performance of Dvorak`s Symphony No.8 by over 100 musicians at 5:30pm in University Hall) and our recent national league table successes: @surreydmm is No.1 in the UK for Music in both the Guardian University Guide and the Daily Mail University Guide!
So much is going on at @uniofsurrey this week in terms of music ensembles!
@ussu.stringorchestra has its first rehearsals this evening, and @ussu_jazzo is running a taster session this evening as well (see the image).
@ussu_mtsoc is running a second taster sessions today following the first on Monday.
@uosbigband has been holding auditions for instrumentalists and vocalists across this week.
In terms of University ensembles, Chamber Choir has been auditioning this week, and the non-auditioning University Choir will commence next week on 2 October.
Our @surreydmm Orchestra Day is this Sunday, 29 September (including a free public performance of Dvorak`s Symphony No. 8 at 5:30pm in University Hall) and University Orchestra, which has been auditioning players all week, will meet on 7 October.
Fantastic recital earlier today at @uniofsurrey @surreydmm by Surrey Future Senior Fellow, music historian and singer Dr Barbara Gentili, of music by Francesco Paolo Tosti and Puccini.
This concert opened our annual Wednesday lunchtime series with the traditional `celebrity` recital. To find out more about our vibrant events calendar, see this link:
All of our lunchtime recitals, and many of our evening concerts, are free to members of the public, in keeping with our aspirations to bring high-quality music performance to local communities.
Our next event will be the Orchestra Day at @uniofsurrey this Sunday, with a free performance of Dvorak`s Symphony No. 8 in University Hall at 5:30pm.
—- Surrey Future Senior Fellow Dr Barbara Gentili will kick off this semester`s lunchtime recitals on Wednesday 25th September with the performance `An Italian at the Court of Queen Victoria`.
Combining voice and piano, the performance describes the colourful life and career of Italian composer Francesco Paolo Tosti (1846-1916), singing teacher to Queen Victoria’s family and composer of many of the their favourite songs.
Join us for free in PATS Studio 1, on campus, at 1.10pm – 2pm, for some music in your lunch hour.
Auditions for @uniofsurrey and @surreyunion music ensembles are taking place this week!
University Orchestra auditions were yesterday, as well as today and tomorrow; University Chamber Choir`s are today; and USSU Big Band is auditioning instrumentalists tonight, and vocalists tomorrow and Friday.
For further information, see the @surreydmm and @uosbigband Instagram accounts.
And, if you`re unsuccessful in being admitted to one of these ensembles, there are still plenty of opportunities to get involved, such as in the Big Band informal jam sessions that take place throughout the year, as well as the popular non-auditioning University Choir.
—- From @uosbigband: 🚨VOCALISTS AUDITIONS🚨 This year we are auditioning for backing and reserve vocalists!! *please note if you have signed up on the instrumentalist form, you will need to book a time slot on the new link as well 🙂
It`s the first day of teaching in the new academic year at @uniofsurrey @surreydmm! Here`s a throwback to last week`s Music Module Options Fair, at which myself and colleagues (some sitting in the front row in this photo!) spoke to some of our incoming undergraduate students on the Music, Creative Music Technology, and Music and Sound Recording (Tonmeister) degrees about the range of options available to them this year in performance, composition, music history, and on our Music Project and Investigating Music modules, to enable them to make informed choices about the modules they could choose to study. @iosr_surrey
Could this be the first @SurreyDMM performance of the new academic year? Yesterday I had the privilege of playing the beautiful organ at Guildford`s United Reformed Church on Portsmouth Road, for their regular Sunday service.
At the @UniofSurrey, we`re fortunate to have links with a number of external venues in town, including some of the main churches. Music is thriving at Guildford URC, which runs a regular series of performances throughout the year that this year included our `Organ Plus` concert in February and a University Chamber Choir concert in March.
As thanks for my involvement in the former, and granting me practice time on such an impressive instrument, I said I`d play a service for them at some point later in the year. I played Lemmens` Fanfare` for the voluntary, and Dupré`s `Te Splendor et Virtus` (from Le Tombeau de Titelouze) before the service. The Dupré was one week early for St Michael`s Day, when it is set, but I don`t suppose anybody minded. I`ve always been fond of it because my mother church was called St Michael`s.
Public engagement and cultural enrichment are important to us at @UniofSurrey, as is giving back to the local community through free events, so here`s hoping for many more external performance opportunities in the coming academic year!
It`s day 1 of the new academic year at the @UniofSurrey and as incoming Head of Music and Media in @SurreyDMM, I have the honour of welcoming nearly 100 new students here!
Today we welcomed students on six Music and Media degrees: BMus Music; BSc/BMus Music and Sound Recording (Tonmeister) @iosr_surrey; BMus Creative Music Technology (CMT); MMus Music; BEng Film Production and Broadcast Engineering (FPBE) @filmeng_surrey; and MA Film, Animation and Digital Arts (FADA).
Across the months and years that follow, they will learn from academics who are leading experts in their fields, at one of the top universities in the UK in both Music and Cinematics (going by recent league table successes).
One of the strengths of @SurreyDMM lies in our excellent facilities and the educational opportunities afforded both within the curriculum (through the excellence of our teaching) and beyond (in our comprehensive series of events and other activities).
Another lies in its diversity, and the vast oppportunities for students to meet and collaborate with those in other programmes and years across @SurreyDMM, and to reap the benefits of both the individual attention they gain within their programme, and being part of a larger community of students with a wide range of different interests and specialisms.
On behalf of all my wonderful @SurreyDMM colleagues, I wish all our incoming students a very warm welcome and all the very best for an enriching and rewarding educational experience!
The @uniofsurrey offers various student-led ensembles in addition to the University-run ones. These include @uosbigband, @ussu.stringorchestra, @ussu_jazzo, @uos_concertband, @ussu_mtsoc, and our newest music group, @ussu_brassensemble.
Some are non-auditioning. Of those that do audition, @uosbigband, our high-calibre 21-piece function band, is holding instrumental auditions on Tuesday 24 September at 7pm in PATS Studio 1 (see the images for further information; vocal auditions to follow).
—- @uosbigband 🚨24/25 AUDITIONS🚨 Sign up link in our bio! Feel free to comment or DM with any questions, or come and see us at freshers fair on Friday 20th!!
There are lots of opportunities to get involved with our thriving culture of music performance at the @uniofsurrey!
A number of University ensembles are run by @surreydmm. Here are some details about joining the University Orchestra (by audition), Chamber Choir (by audition), or University Choir (non-auditioning).
Or you can join the University Choir with no audition. Rehearsals are Wednesdays from 2 October, 6-8pm in Studio 1.
Everybody is welcome: students, staff, graduates, members of the public… 🙂
For further information, please contact: dmm@surrey.ac.uk
Posted @withregram • @surreysll Auditions to be part of the @uniofsurrey Orchestra or Chamber Choir are now open for the 2024-5 year!
Scan to book your 15 minute timeslot in PATS Studio 1 with Russell Keable, our Head of Conducting. Bring a short piece you know well and are comfortable playing or singing. We will look at your sight-reading and scales.
Everyone is welcome, from any course, staff, or member of the public.
Many congratulations to @uniofsurrey for its excellent rankings in the @Guardian University Guide 2025, published on Saturday!
Among the University`s best results are No.1 in the UK for Music, No.4 in the UK for Languages and Linguistics, and No.6 in the UK for English.
Congratulations to @surreydmm, @iosr_surrey and @surreysll!
The @Guardian wrote that "Strong graduate outcomes have helped Surrey power its way back into the Guardian University Guide’s top 20 this year, with its strengths seen especially in music, languages and linguistics courses" in an interview with our Vice-Chancellor (pictured).
Posted @withregram • @surreydmm Surrey RANKED #1 FOR MUSIC in the country!!!
Really impressive article in the @guardian today (Saturday) – @uniofsurrey described as one of ‘three rising stars’ of the Guardian University Guide 2025, with strengths especially in Music, languages and linguistics.
Congratulations to all at @surreydmm – The @Guardian University Guide 2025 was released earlier today and the @uniofsurrey is ranked No.1 in the UK for Music.
That`s top in the country!
We`ve been consistently high-ranking in the past, including No.2 last year, but not topped this league table since 2017.
That`s in addition to all of @surreydmm`s other recent league table successes, which include:
• 2nd in the UK for Cinematics and Photography in the National Student Survey 2024 • 3rd in the UK for Drama, Dance and Cinematics in The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024 • 5th in the UK for Music in the Complete University Guide 2025 • Top 10 for Music for overall satisfaction in the National Student Survey 2024
What a great time for @surreydmm staff, students, graduates and our incoming 2024/25 cohort to be #ProudtobeSurrey!
And the Daily Mail University Guide 2025 has ranked the University of Surrey 5th in the UK for Student Experience, 12th for Graduate Salaries and 18th overall.
Congratulations to @surreydmm alumna @yixuan__qian (MMus Music 2019), who has been cast in a leading role in an @arcadianopera production in London this November. I`ll definitely be there!
It was a great to catch up with Yixuan last year at a major concert in Central London in which she was singing and I was giving a pre-performance talk, then to welcome her back to @uniofsurrey for a visit earlier this year.
Posted @withregram • @yixuan__qian 👋🏻 News from me
Hi friends, I‘d like to share some news about my upcoming show. I will be playing the leading role 👦🏻Sang Sang of The Stone God at Arcadian Opera in November 2024 in London.
When I auditioned for this role, I didn’t expect to be the lead in this opera. Yes, I was really really excited when I got it. When I got to know the story, I realised that the character, a young lad, seemed to be another me. We‘re connected!
🤔I have a lot of similarities with him: I used to live in Chongqing and was born in Sichuan; Sang Sang grew up in Chongqing and met his best friend from Sichuan. Both Sangsang and I lost our fathers at a young age🫂, and he learned about his father‘s bravery in this opera.
This is the composer Nicolas Michael Smith’s first opera, based on the magical children’s stories by author Hong Ying 虹影. He also created the beautiful libretto of this opera. I‘ll be working with the music director, Justin Lavender, and the stage director Ali Marshall from Arcadian Opera @arcadianopera
I’ll be singing along with my friend @hemingli.soprano for the first time in the UK. How exciting it is!
🥰Come to this show at the Bloomsbury Theatre on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of November.
@retrospectopera`s recording of Stanford`s opera Shamus O`Brien has been shortlisted for the prestigious 2024 @gramophonemagazine Classical Music Awards! Many congratulations to all, including our recording engineer Dave Rowell @filoclassical who is an award-winning @iosr_surrey @surreydmm Tonmeister graduate.
LATEST RETROSPECT OPERA RELEASE NOMINATED FOR GRAMOPHONE AWARDS 2024
The shortlist for the 2024 Gramophone Classical Music Awards Shortlist was announced on Friday, with six recordings in each of 11 categories – and Retrospect Opera’s recording of C.V. Stanford’s Shamus O’Brien is one of those nominated in the ‘Opera’ category!
At the latter link, you can read Gramophone’s excellent review by Richard Bratby of the ‘indefatigable’ Retrospect Opera`s Shamus O’Brien. Here are a few brief excerpts:
‘it needs to be heard by anyone with more than a passing interest in British music’
‘it’s a jewel: the sort of piece that makes you sit up and reappraise everything you thought you knew about a composer’
‘prepare to be bowled over by the assurance and freshness of Shamus O`Brien’
‘In short, this is a magnificent piece of advocacy for an inspired and wonderfully enjoyable opera.’
Gramophone magazine is the pre-eminent publisher of reviews of classical recordings and its Classical Music Awards are one of the most prestigious accolades of the classical music industry, akin to the Grammys or Oscars.
It was great to take some recent graduates from @SurreyDMM and the @uniofsurrey back to the @tunsgatequarter, Guildford to perform as part of its `Summer Surprises` series for August – one final opportunity to play together before the new academic year starts!
Seen here are the new Head of Music and Media @dr_chris_wiley (me) on oboe; recent BMus Music graduate Annabel Sheridan on violin (@annabel.mus1c); regular performer with Music and Media students and staff, Angie McShee on viola; and recent Tonmeister graduate Milan Brinker on cello (@magi_in_milan).
We played a series of classical quartets and arrangements of music by Mozart, Haydn, Boccherini, Bach, Handel, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Borodin, Sibelius, and others for two hours, interspersed with duet items for violin and viola or violin and cello to give my lip a break!
It was wonderful to see one of the new students we`re due to welcome to @SurreyDMM next month, and her family, in the course of our playing as well – a convergence of outgoing graduates and incoming students.
Last chance to vote! Voting closes at midnight tonight.
Second-year BEng Film Production and Broadcast Engineering student @surreydmm @uniofsurrey, Maddie Webb, has reached the final of the (European) Pro Carton Student Video Award 2024, with an impressively sophisticated stop motion animation entitled `A Second Chance`.
It packs an impressive amount into a two-minute film and makes a profound message about sustainability in the process. Do take a look at the cute cardboard couple!
Posted @withregram • @filmeng_surrey Second Year student Maddie Webb has got through to the final of the Pro Carton Student Video awards, with a smashing stop motion animation. Please give it a watch (it is only 2 minutes!) and then vote for her, if you like it.
The statue of Ethel Smyth is Woking is a place of special significance to me. Having conducted research on Smyth for some 25 years, the last decade of which at the @uniofsurrey @surreydmm, I was honoured to be invited to give the speech at the unveiling of the statue on March 2022.
It`s also a site of special significance to other people. The lovely story of a couple who recently got married, after he proposed to her underneath this statue, appeared yesterday on the front page of the @classicfm website. So I wish Chris and Jenny all the best, whoever they are. 🙂
The commercial recordings of three of Smyth`s operas are available from @retrospectopera, of which I`m on the Board of Trustees: https://retrospectopera.org.uk/
A page of my blog is dedicated to my research and public engagement activity on Smyth as composer, author, suffragette, and Surrey resident: https://chris-wiley.com/ethel-smyth/
Posted @withregram • @classicfm We always love hearing a success story at Classic FM Romance – so we were delighted when Chris contacted us and told us that he met fiancée Jenny after signing up and giving it a go.
They got engaged beneath a statue of composer Dame Ethel Smyth.
Read their love story via the link in our bio, and find out more about Classic FM Romance at classicfmromance.com
It`s a real pleasure to have been involved with @retrospectopera for the last eight years. They originally sought me out as an expert on Ethel Smyth, and it`s been wonderful to have played a part in these recordings, including contributing liner notes based on the research on Smyth I have undertaken during my time at the @uniofsurrey.
Odaline de la Martinez, the conductor for the recordings of both of Smyth`s operas featured on the BBC Radio 3 broadcasts discussed below – The Boatswain`s Mate and Fête Galante – is a @surreydmm graduate.
The other work released on the same disc as Fête Galante (Liza Lehmann`s The Happy Prince) was recorded at @uniofsurrey in PATS Studio 1, by a recording producer and recording engineer both of whom were Tonmeister graduates. I was in the recording studio too – but only to turn pages for the pianist!
It is also wonderful to see that the other recordings broadcast included one featuring Norwegian conductor Cathrine Winnes, by whom I was once interviewed for a Scandinavian documentary series on women composers for Sveriges Television. She came to my office in PATS building with the Swedish producer and camera crew!
Posted @withregram • @retrospectopera Ethel Smyth was the featured composer on this week’s BBC Radio 3 Composer of the Week (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tnxf/episodes/player), and @retrospectopera’s recordings of her operas, conducted by Odaline de la Martinez, have appeared in three of the episodes!
Our recording of Smyth’s Fête Galante was heard on Monday’s and Wednesday’s broadcasts (‘Overture: Sarabande’ on Monday and ‘Joy unbounded’, ‘Heigho!’, and ‘Hushed is the world’ on Wednesday), and our recording of The Boatswain’s Mate (Overture, ‘What if I were young again’, and ‘O Mary, I try to forget you!’) on Thursday’s broadcast.
Listen again to these broadcasts at the following links:
It was a real pleasure to see the BMus Music, BMus Creative Music Technology, and BSc Music and Sound Recording (Tonmeister) students graduate today, in a ceremony that also included @surreydmm`s BEng Film Production and Broadcast Engineering (@filmeng_surrey) graduands as well as those from @guildfordschoolofacting.
Here are some photos kindly taken by various parents, of myself together with some of the BMus Music graduands including @sethlyonsmusic, @michellewtw_mus, @annabel.mus1c, and @bradjohnallen. Congratulations to all of you! The other member of staff in the first photo is my wonderful colleague, Professor Jeremy Barham.
Some of the photos were taken on the steps of @guildfordcathedral, where the ceremony was held, and others in the marquee on the field opposite the building that is the base of operations for @surreydmm and @iosr_surrey, housing the staff offices, music practice rooms, studios, and edit suites.
It was a lovely ceremony, just the right length and featuring a beautiful speech by our own graduand @michellewtw_mus – and for the most part, the weather held as well! It reminded me what an honour it has been to teach these amazing students as well as others on the CMT and Tonmeister programmes whom I caught up with at the marquee.
I`ve been at many of these ceremonies over the years and it`s often struck me that @uniofsurrey really does go the extra mile in giving its graduands a decent send-off and enabling them to celebrate in style. It`s a fitting end to their hard work at university, although quite a few of our students are returning here as postgraduates next year – they can`t get enough of the place! #classof2024 #foreversurrey
Here’s a little message recorded two days in advance of #graduationday at the @uniofsurrey.
Many congratulations to all Music, Creative Music Technology, and Music and Sound Recording (Tonmeister) graduands in @surreydmm, and I`ll look forward to seeing you at the ceremony.
I wish you all the very best for the future. Don`t forget to keep in contact! #classof2024 #foreversurrey
The two-day international symposium `Dame Ethel Smyth: Connections, Culture, and Context` has taken place at @dublincityuniversity, Ireland this weekend (12-13 July).
Earlier today I delivered the one-hour Keynote Address, `Ethel Smyth as Life-Writer: Autobiography, Biography, Music`, which was very well-received by the Symposium`s 40 international delegates (including several joining online).
Yesterday I also presented a conversation-style paper on the first 10 years of the @retrospectopera record label (which has commercially released professional recordings of three of Smyth`s operas) and the prominence of Smyth in its catalogue, together with my colleagues on the Board of Trustees, Valerie Langfield and @b.f.hamilton.
It was a wonderful and collegial conference that prompted many fruitful and vibrant discussions, and I was honoured to have played such a significant part as Keynote speaker and to have been recognized internationally in this manner for my continuing research on Surrey-based composer, author, and suffragette Ethel Smyth, much of which has been conducted at @uniofsurrey @surreydmm.
The Second Biennial International Conference of Music and the University was hosted at @uniofsurrey @surreydmm from 4-6 July, with myself and three other academics (one from the UK, one from Portugal, and one from the US) as co-organizers and conference co-chairs.
With over 70 delegates from the UK, Continental Europe, North America, and Australia, it included 15 thematic paper sessions, 2 roundtables, 3 recitals and lecture-recitals, 4 teaching demonstrations/workshops, an invited plenary session, and 2 keynote addresses.
It was amazing to host a major three-day international conference on Music and the University at @uniofsurrey (following the first successful conference in this series two years ago in Central London), placing us at the forefront of shaping the agenda on teaching and research in music in higher education internationally.
I presented a paper on the opportunities and threats to academia of generative AI and its innovative use in an assessment in my popular music teaching in @surreydmm, which was great fun to put together and very well-received.
I also offered opening and closing statements for a lively roundtable panel discussion on the relationship between teaching and research in higher education, based around my autoethnographic journal article on my teaching of Adele`s albums at @uniofsurrey, and chaired one of the keynote addresses and four of the thematic sessions.
The photos show those delegates who stayed around to chat afterwards; the scene before the conference started; one of the keynote addresses; and one of the lecture-recitals.
The new graduates from @surreydmm who received their degree results yesterday can go out into the world of employment knowing that @uniofsurrey is one of the top universities in the UK for Music.
In addition to being No.5 in the UK for Music (including our Music, Creative Music Technology, and Tonmeister degrees) in the Complete University Guide 2025, @uniofsurrey is No.2 in the UK (and top university, since No.1 is a conservatoire) for Music in the Guardian University Guide 2024, and Top 5 in the UK for Music for overall student satisfaction in the National Student Survey 2023.
The @uniofsurrey as a whole is ranked joint 12th in the UK in the Complete University Guide 2025, and 4th in the UK for overall student satisfaction in the National Student Survey 2023 (the latter is measured by percentage positivity based on questions 1-24 of the NSS, for all institutions listed in the Guardian University Guide league tables).
Posted @withregram • @uniofsurrey The Complete University Guide 2025 ranks nine of our subjects in the top ten in the United Kingdom, with three ranking first: ‘Information Technology and Systems’, ‘Paramedic Science’ and ‘Tourism, Transport, Travel and Heritage Studies’.
Subject tables are based on six measures: entry standards, student satisfaction, research quality, continuation, graduate prospects – outcomes and graduate prospects – on track.
We are proud to rank joint 12th in the Complete University Guide 2025 table out of 130 universities.
There`s just one week to go until @thewhiterose.themusical returns to the stage on Wednesday 3 July at 7:30pm at ACT Theatre, Kingston (@acttheatre_kc) as part of the FUSE International Festival!
`The White Rose` was composed by @uniofsurrey graduate @ryanrusconi_ (BMus Music 2023), who also co-wrote the book. It enjoyed a sold-out run in London back in February this year.
Other former @surreydmm students involved in this production include @michellewtw_mus (BMus Music 2024), who is working as the show`s singing director, and @sophiee_music (BMus Music 2023) and @__shannon.cello__ (BMus Music 2023) who are performing in the pit band on flute and cello, respectively.
`The White Rose` is a historical musical recounting the heartbreaking story of Hans and Sophie through the eyes of their father, Robert Scholl. The narrative, enriched by an artistic blend of music and drama, immerses the audience in the courageous journey of two teenagers who dared to defy Hitler. From Hans and Sophie`s involvement in The Hitler Youth to their awakening dissent, the musical paints a vivid picture of their ideological transformation and mission. The White Rose, an idealistic group of friends, emerged as beacons of resistance throughout Nazi Germany utilising anonymous writings to mobilise Germans against Hitler. The plot navigates through key moments of their lives: Hans`s conflicts with the regime, Sophie`s struggle within Nazi organisations, and the imprisonment of their father. The gripping climax unfolds as Hans, Sophie, and their comrades face arrest and a dramatic show trial. The musical delves into their unwavering commitment, refusal to betray each other, and the harrowing decision to embrace martyrdom by guillotine. The musical questions if Hans and Sophie`s sacrifice was in vain.
I`ve recently been profiled on the @uniofsurrey website as Programme Lead for the Music BMus degree, for their `Getting to know…` series.
Learn all about the aspects of my role that I most cherish: the opportunity to keep learning new things every day, to participate alongside students in a wide range of performances, and to work with many different high-profile external organisations.
Find out why students should study Music at @surreydmm, what I look for in a prospective student, and what I get up to when I`m not doing music – walking my dog, tabletop roleplaying, and hunting virtual mice!
The feature explores various musical activities I`ve undertaken this year with collaborators including @alexia00002019, @annabel.mus1c, Angie McShee, @magi_in_milan, and Russell Keable. There`s also a great picture of me with three of our first-year musicians, @arlobriggs_, @m_reed257, and @giles.raee, who probably now regret standing next to me at PATS Ball!
Last Thursday saw @surreydmm`s final concert of the academic year: a free recital of music by our excellent Chamber Choir in @guildfordcathedral as part of their `Coffee Concerts` series, conducted by Professor Jeremy Barham with Margaret Roberts at the piano.
The choir performed a beautiful programme of music including Fauré`s Messe Basse and Mátyás Seiber`s Three Hungarian Folk Songs. These were interspersed by student solos including a piece by Langlais performed on the Cathedral`s organ by @williambrooke05, and Delibes` famous Flower Duet sung by @_ameliebradley and @michellewongwtw.
The first item on the programme was a piece specially composed for the choir by the distinguished conductor and composer Odaline de la Martinez entitled `Home I want to go home`. The second photo shows myself and Dr Martinez on the steps of the Cathedral.
This evening saw the last @uniofsurrey University Orchestra concert of the year hosted by @surreydmm, featuring Bernstein`s Candide Overture, Massenet`s Le Cid, Tchaikovsky`s Swan Lake, and Stravinsky`s Firebird Suite.
It was an excellent concert (with free admission as usual), all the more so given that this is a student ensemble pulling off some incredibly challenging orchestral repertoire, having had only half a dozen rehearsals since semester resumed after the Spring vacation.
We welcomed a few extra players in the brass section, three extra strings, two bassoons, and harp, but other than that all of the musicians in the orchestra were regulars, mainly students plus a few graduates, staff, and townsfolk originally attracted to the University by our Community Orchestra. I`m certain the students benefit greatly from performing in an ensemble that includes some amazing guest players.
It was a little bittersweet for me in that this was the last time performing with the final-year undergraduate students – including my collaborators on various performance projects this year, @magi_in_milan and @annabel.mus1c, shown in the second photo. Until the next time!
Congratulations to all of the brilliant students (@johnfaria.music, @arlobriggs_, @jess.townson, @lewis_liv, @toby.swallow, @trumpet_luke, @alexhow64, @giles.raee, and many others) as well as to our incredible Director of Conducting, Russell Keable – and thank you for making a dream come true since I`ve always wanted to play the famous oboe solo from Swan Lake with full orchestra.
Our annual @dmmpatsball took place last night, with over 120 people present from @surreydmm and across the @uniofsurrey and beyond. Apparently I`ve still got what it takes to get down with the kids and party the night away!
And what a night it was! A variety of buffet food, with 2-for-1 cocktails at the bar; several of our @surreydmm students acting as impromptu DJs throughout the evening; and more Mario Kart, following the big once-a-semester @surreydmm tournament organised by our technicians a couple of weeks back.
A professional photographer was present throughout the evening, so these are just a few choice photos snapped opportunistically by myself and @annabel.mus1c. Featured students include @annabel.mus1c., @ann13xx, @violin_jess, @magi_in_milan, @soapydiddleydoo87, @rubyyphillips, @arlobriggs_, @m_reed257, @giles.raee and there`s even a picture of me with my wonderful colleague Dr Tom Hall, Programme Leader for Creative Music Technology.
Does that mean we`re done for the year now? Not by a long way! Off the top of my head… there`s a @ussu_brassensemble concert tomorrow (5:30pm, Studio 1), the big University Orchestra concert on Saturday 1 June (7:30pm, University Hall), and a @uosbigband concert on Wednesday 5 June (7pm, Studio 1). Student recitals continue throughout the next two weeks, including the usual lunchtime recitals on Wednesdays at 1:10pm in Studio 1 (29 May and 5 June); the annual Joyce Dixey Composition Competition will be held on Monday 3 June, and the following day our annual Film Video and Broadcast Engineering Degree Show will take place in Studio 1, showcasing the work of our brilliant final-year @filmeng_surrey students. Then, on Thursday 13 June, our Chamber Choir will perform in @guildfordcathedral.
But for now, I shall wish huge congratulations to @michellewtw_mus, @sethlyonsmusic and the other organisers – all of them incredible students – on hosting such a successful PATS Ball 2024!
The `Words and Music` concert for our Music Project module took place last Thursday hosted by @surreydmm, organised by the students themselves and featuring a range of classical and popular music performed by first- and second-year BMus Music students with live and recorded sound provided by the Tonmeister students on the module, and ending with the @ussu_brassensemble performing a piece composed (again for the module) by one of its musicians.
The @ussu_brassensemble comprises students on the BMus and MMus Music, Creative Music Technology, and Tonmeister programmes and even a couple of members from other Schools in the @uniofsurrey! The group has been very busy lately, performing in the `Word and Music` concert as well as various others including the Ensembles Concert earlier in the month. And now they`re going it alone with their Spring Concert on 26 May at 5:30pm in PATS Studio 1!
The ensemble was formed last year by @soapydiddleydoo87, who, in addition to being a fantastic euphonium player, can also solve a Rubik`s cube in under a minute (I know because we put her to the test during one of my lectures last semester!). It seems rather appropriate to mention this since I heard on the news earlier that the Rubik`s cube was invented 50 years ago today, on 19 May 1974.
Posted @withregram • @ussu_brassensemble University of Surrey Brass Concert on 26th May!
Following @uosbigband`s first successful Lakeside Jam Night last week, they`re doing the same next week!
Turn up from 6-8pm on Thursday 23 May at the Lakeside Bar on the @uniofsurrey`s Stag Hill campus to hear them! Bring your own instrument (unless keyboard or drums) and make yourself known to them, and they will try to ensure you get a chance to play with them – all are welcome to take part. Bring your friends too!
@uosbigband are the @uniofsurrey`s professional-calibre 21-piece big band comprising saxophones, trombones, trumpets, rhythm section, and two vocalists. They audition student members annually from @surreydmm and other Schools, to ensure they always have the best group of musicians.
The band performs both within Surrey and externally at functions, competitions, gigs, and even an annual tour. Their varied repertoire includes a diverse range of genres from jazz to swing, Latin, samba, and funk, so their live shows are not to be missed!
Posted @withregram • @uosbigband Back by popular demand!
We’re happy to announce the 2nd Lakeside jam! Come along to the Lakeside bar on the 23rd of May for a chill evening of tunes. All skill levels welcome!
The Complete University Guide 2025 was issued today and Music at the @uniofsurrey is No.5 in the UK!
This latest result follows the pattern of the University`s excellent placing for Music in the national league tables, which includes No.2 in the UK (and top university) for Music in the Guardian University Guide 2024, and Top 5 in the UK for Music in the National Student Survey 2023.
Thursday 16 May, 7:30pm PATS Studio One, @uniofsurrey Admission free
Every semester, @surreydmm runs a Music Project module on a different theme, according to the research interests and specialisms of the member(s) of staff teaching the module. It is offered to students of all years from first-year undergraduate to Master students, and across programmes including the BMus and MMus Music, Creative Music Technology, and Tonmeister programmes. Collaboration between students on the module – as performers, composers, arrangers, events organisers, and sound recordists – is actively encouraged.
This semester`s Music Project is `Words and Music`, and has been taught by myself together with my colleagues Dr Georgia Volioti, Dr Inja Stanović, Dr Milton Mermikides @miltongram, Dr John McGrath @johnmcgrathmusic, and Professor Jeremy Barham.
Please join us for the end of module event: an evening of performances on the theme of `Words and Music`, featuring both acoustic and amplified music by @surreydmm student soloists as well as the @ussu_brassensemble.
One of the features of the module is that these events are organised by the students themselves, in this instance, by a team of students led by @soapydiddleydoo87. The image shows the brilliant poster designed by @rubyyphillips. Both are first-year BMus Music undergraduate students. We also have a team of Tonmeister students providing live sound, backing music, and a full recording of the concert.
The 80th anniversary of the death of Dame Ethel Smyth is tomorrow. To commemorate the anniversary, earlier this evening I gave a talk for @surrey.librariesuk at Dorking Library on Smyth`s life and works.
The talk drew on my own research over the years on Smyth`s music including her operas, keyboard works and chamber works; her memoirs and other prose writings; her friendship and intellectual exchange with Virginia Woolf; her relationship with the county of Surrey, and the houses and towns in which she lived; and her statue in Woking town centre (and statues of women more generally) – incorporating aspects of music history, musicology, music analysis, literature, women`s history and local history.
This event formed part of the @uniofsurrey`s Surrey Cultural Lives project which sits in @surreysll, and which sees a series of public talks being given on Surrey-based artists across the county as well as a dedicated website. Thank you to the University for funding this initiative, meaning that we are able to offer these events free of charge to the public as education and outreach.
It was great fun fitting this talk round the visit to @surreydmm of the @deltasaxophonequartet today, which included an afternoon performance workshop and an evening concert – both of which I unexpectedly became involved in!
For further information about my talk and the Surrey Cultural Lives project:
Yesterday saw our Semester 2 Ensembles Concert hosted by @surreydmm – and what a concert it was! A full and varied event in which no fewer than four student-led ensembles performed: USSU Jazz Orchestra (@ussu_jazzo), University of Surrey Concert Band (@uos_concertband), USSU Brass Ensemble (@ussu_brassensemble), and USSU String Orchestra (@ussu.stringorchestra).
All four ensembles played individual programmes for around 25 minutes. Jazz Orchestra gave a rousing opening to the concert with a series of standards including `Fly Me to the Moon` as well as more modern works such as Adele`s `Skyfall`. Concert Band followed, with medleys from Disney films and the show Hamilton, closing with some Vaughan Williams folk songs.
After the interval, Brass Ensemble played a series of arrangements of familiar tunes including Londonderry Air and `Nimrod` from Elgar`s Enigma Variations. String Orchestra closed with a medley from Pirates of the Caribbean, followed by movements from Rutter`s Suite for Strings and Holst`s St Paul`s Suite.
It was really wonderful to see musicians from across the @uniofsurrey – drawn from many different Schools and programmes, from first year undergraduate to Masters and PhD students – coming together to offer such a full and vibrant programme. It was equally heartening to see so many @surreydmm students involved, particularly in leadership positions as conductors, directors, and ensemble organisers.
Of the 50 or so gifted students who performed, it was particularly impressive that some of the brass players took part in three out of the four ensembles (quite a feat of stamina!). It was also notable that several multi-talented musicians performed on instruments that were not their first study: a hornist who played bass, another who doubled on sax, a guitarist who played trumpet…
And, of course, the event was free to attend, enabling the local community to benefit from this fantastic celebration of the University`s musical talent. Congratulations to all involved on such a successful event!
Earlier this evening I gave a one-hour @institute_of_physics talk at the @uniofsurrey entitled `The Science of Musical Instruments`, co-organized with Alexia Beale (@alexia00002019) from the School of Mathematics and Physics and with the assistance of student helpers from both Physics and @surreydmm including Rida Sabahat, Sian Watson, and Annabel Sheridan (@annabel.mus1c).
This event saw 65 people come to the @uniofsurrey campus, ranging from Year 2 to secondary school – there were even some undergraduates in the audience! It was really great to see a range of ages, genders, and ethnicities all excited by science and its intersections with music, and to collaborate, once again, on an @institute_of_physics event hosted by @uniofsurrey.
In the course of the session, we looked at instruments including viola, cello, oboe, clarinet, recorder, flute, panpipes, harmonica, guitar, ukulele, cymbals, drums, and other percussion (yes, I really did play all of those instruments, except cello – though not many of them very well! – but of course I had help from Alexia and Annabel too.) I also demonstrated conducting by leading the audience, together with several willing young volunteers, in a final chorus of `Happy birthday`.
This was a free public talk intended to educate and excite schoolchildren in music and science in a university setting. Feedback from audience members included "super presenter really fun and animated".
Further information about the event is available at the following links (and it was a real honour to have made it onto the front page of the @uniofsurrey website):
How wonderful to learn that two of our student-led ensembles, USSU Jazz Orchestra and USSU Brass Ensemble, are giving a joint concert tomorrow (Friday 26 April) in PATS Studio 1 from 7-9pm.
USSU Jazz Orchestra (@ussu_jazzo), or `Jazzo` as it`s affectionately known, is a student ensemble that has been running for some years. It`s an inclusive band that meets weekly to play jazz in a relaxed atmosphere, and comprises saxophones, trumpets, clarinets, trombones, and other instruments.
USSU Brass Ensemble (@ussu_brassensemble) was formed at the start of the 2023/24 academic year by an enterprising first-year student, and has been going strong ever since. Like Jazzo, it`s officially recognised as a student society by the University of Surrey Students` Union (USSU) @surreyunion.
Both ensembles include many Music students, so I know many of the musicians involved personally. Do come along if you have the chance – it will be great! (Please note the earlier start time of 7pm.)
USSU Brass Ensemble is rather busy at the moment – they`re performing a second time next week, in our Ensembles Concert in PATS Studio 1 on the evening of Thursday 2 May! Both events are free of charge.
Amongst other repertoire, USSU Jazz Orchestra will be performing an arrangement of Adele`s `Skyfall`, which is very relevant because I have just given a lecture on the music of the James Bond franchise to some of them this afternoon!
Posted @withregram • @ussu_jazzo Come and listen to an evening of music from USSU Jazzo and USSU Brass ensemble 🎺🎷🤗
Many congratulations to the winners of today`s annual Chamber Music Competition: @annabel.mus1c, @violin_jess, Angie McShee, @magi_in_milan, and @monts_42, performing the finale of Schubert`s Piano Quintet in A major, `The Trout`. Five musicians, three different Music programmes, and one excellent performance!
Let`s not forget the runners up, Yen-Cheng Lu (trumpet) and Nina Peters (piano), performing Herbert L. Clark`s `The Debutante`, and all the other groups who competed. These included performances of Quilter`s songs, some Schumann duets for soprano and tenor, a Bolero by Jeno Hubay, Faure`s Fantasie for flute, and even `Le Cygne` from The Carnival of the Animals – but played on euphonium rather than cello!
This competition was presented as part of our Lunchtime Recital Series, which runs weekly on Wednesdays at 1:10pm throughout the academic year. Entrance to this and other events is free because we recognise the importance of making music education available to all and giving back to the community through cultural enrichment, outreach, and public engagement. It was a delight, for instance, to welcome a busload of KS2 students from a local school to join us in the audience for today`s concert.
The Department of Music and Media at @uniofsurrey is so lively and vibrant that it`s difficult to keep track of all its activities! Coming up, our Jazz Orchestra and Brass Ensemble will give a combined concert this Friday, then there`s an interactive session for schoolchildren on `The Science of Musical Instruments` next Tuesday (you can find out about these elsewhere on my Instagram feed). Later next week, the University Chamber Choir will give the Lunchtime Recital on Wednesday, with Ensembles Concert (our String Orchestra, Concert Band, and Brass Ensemble) on Thursday 2 May. And much more besides!
Alexia Beale (@alexia00002019) and I are organising an @institute_of_physics talk at the @uniofsurrey next week on `The Science of Musical Instruments`, aimed at schoolchildren aged 7-11:
• Tuesday 30 April, 6-6:45pm • Room LTD, Lecture Theatre Block • Stag Hill campus, University of Surrey, Guildford
All are welcome; the talk is public and unticketed, and admission is free.
Further information is in the poster and the links below.
One of the many wonderful aspects of working in the academic profession is the opportunity to disseminate my research and practice in a wide range of contexts and to represent @surreydmm and the @uniofsurrey across the world.
I`m just returning from delivering a presentation, as well as a poster presentation, on music autoethnography at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA, 11-14 April 2024. This is the largest conference of education researchers globally, with over 15,000 delegates from across the world.
Music autoethnography is an emerging field internationally and I`m privileged to be at the forefront of this development, having organized two multi-day conferences (London, 2018 and Glasgow, 2020) and co-edited a major collection of essays to be published later this year by Routledge.
Shown in the first photograph are the participants in our symposium on music autoethnography: (l-r) Professor Peter Gouzouasis (University of British Columbia, Canada), myself, Dr Charissa Granger (University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago), Dr Matthew Yanko (University of British Columbia, Canada), and Professor David Lines (University of Auckland, New Zealand). Yes, that really is four continents represented on one panel!
All five speakers have contributed essays to my aforementioned volume and it was great to meet them in person (again, in most cases), and to discuss possible future international research collaborations as well.
One of the great things about working at @uniofsurrey is the opportunity to collaborate with some amazing academics.
Back in 2022, I co-organised a major four-day international conference in @surreydmm, the Sixth Performance Studies Network International Conference, with my colleagues Dr Tom Armstrong and Dr Georgia Volioti. The full programme is here: https://psn2022.wordpress.com/conference-schedule/
18 months later, we`ve just announced a Call for Proposals for a special issue of Performance Research journal @theprjournal entitled `On Music`, which we are guest-editing, bringing some of the most interesting papers from that conference together with cutting-edge research in the field across the world.
Further information on the Call for Proposals is below and in the attached image. The deadline for submission of proposals is Monday 22 April 2024, with the special issue to be published in Spring 2025.
Posted @withregram • @theprjournal NEW CfP
On Music (30.1) Edited by Tom Armstrong, Georgia Volioti and Christopher Wiley (Spring 2025)
DEADLINE: 22 April 2024
Read PR’s current CfPs on the PR website at bit.ly/prcallsforsubmissions or find the link in our bio.
It was a real delight and pleasure to hear my multi-talented friend from undergraduate days, Dr Sam Carr @samtcarr (University of Kent @unikentlive), addressing a sizeable audience at the @uniofsurrey earlier this week in a public lecture on Physics and Music.
In a one-hour talk entitled `The Well-Tempered Physicist`, Sam expertly explained the science and mathematics behind music, with a focus on temperament, while simultaneously entertaining the audience at the piano with music by Bach, Mendelssohn, and others.
The event was organised, very proficiently, by the @uniofsurrey`s own Alexia Beale @alexia00002019 (seen introducing and chairing Sam in the second photo) as part of an @institute_of_physics South Central Branch public lecture series. Further information about Sam`s talk is here: https://www.iop.org/events/well-tempered-physicist-physics-and-music
As a follow-up event, Alexia and I will be exploring the science of musical instruments in a 45-minute @institute_of_physics interactive session held in Lecture Theatre D, @uniofsurrey on 30 April at 6pm, aimed at schoolchildren aged 7 to 11. For more information, please see: https://www.facebook.com/events/433980272410058/
It`s always lovely to give interviews on the many activities that go on in the vibrant @SurreyDMM – but breakfast shows make for an early start! Earlier today I was interviewed by James Cannon on the BBC Radio Surrey breakfast show about the @uniofsurrey Orchestra and Choir Concert this weekend and the Community Orchestra Day next weekend.
University Orchestra and Choir Concert Holy Trinity Church, Guildford Saturday 16 March, 7:30-9:15pm Vivaldi – Credo Grieg – Ave maris stella Beethoven – Piano Concerto No. 3 Sibelius – Symphony No. 3
Community Orchestra Day University Hall, University of Surrey Sunday 24 March, 11am-6:15pm (for players) Informal concert 5:30-6:15pm (for the audience) Tchaikovsky – Fantasy Overture `Romeo and Juliet` Dvorak – The Wild Dove
For the Community Orchestra, we are still in need of an additional trombone, harp, and percussionist. As always with an orchestra, more strings are also very welcome! Rehearsals start at 11am in University Hall, with lunch provided.
Both events are conducted by our excellent Head of Conducting, Russell Keable. Entry to both is free and no ticket is required – just turn up and enjoy the music! Enquiries: orchestra@surrey.ac.uk
A few of us performed Pachelbel`s famous Canon, as well as the less well-known Gigue to which it is paired, during the regular Wednesday Lunchtime Recital series at @surreydmm @uniofsurrey earlier today, where our performance was heard by a large cohort of applicants to our CMT (Creative Music Technology) programme during their Interview Day.
Our ensemble included a final-year BMus Music student, a first-year Maths with Music student, a guest performer, and me on harpsichord continuo. It was therefore a wonderful example of the collaborations we seek to nurture here at @uniofsurrey between students on different programmes in different departments as well as with staff and guest players!
It also made a neat link with my teaching earlier in the week, in which the students talked about popular songs based on similar chord progressions – including the familiar eight-chord progression of Pachelbel`s Canon – during a discussion of recent high-profile copyright disputes in popular music. It`s a great instance of our keenness to draw together some of the many different activities that go on in @surreydmm even when the connections between them might not be obvious at first.
And, as indicated by all the microphones in the photos, our Tonmeister students were on hand as always to record us, and suitably stretched by the challenge of having three hours to figure out how to record a harpsichord and three violins, but also a piano and three separate singers, all sharing the same stage within the space of a 40-minute recital!
Violin I – @annabel.mus1c Violin II – @violin_jess Violin III – Angie McShee Harpsichord – @dr_chris_wiley
The first recording of Stanford`s comic opera Shamus O`Brien is the 11th CD release by @retrospectopera, the recording label of which I and four other academics are Trustees, and whose mission is to record and preserve the heritage of neglected 18th-, 19th-, and 20th-century British opera and related works.
My involvement with the label overlaps very effectively with my scholarly endeavours at @uniofsurrey @surreydmm and its continuing cultural enrichment/public engagement agenda, not least since three of Retrospect`s back catalogue are operas by Ethel Smyth, a primary subject of my research.
This recording will be released on 8 March 2024, to coincide with the centenary of the composer`s death. Further information, including the link to pre-order, is given below.
Posted @withregram • @retrospectopera STANFORD’S SHAMUS O’BRIEN – FIRST RECORDING – RELEASE DATE 8 MARCH 2024
Retrospect Opera is delighted to announce the release of the first recording of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford’s Romantic comic opera Shamus O’Brien (RO011, 2 CDs), priced at £23.95.
Shamus O’Brien, easily Stanford’s most popular opera, is set against the Irish rebellion of 1798. It tells the story of the eponymous character, hunted by the English so that he can be brought to justice as a rebel – but will he manage to escape? Revived after the composer’s death, its mix of pathos, drama, and pleasing melodies has continued to prove irresistible.
This recording features Brendan Collins, Gemma Ní Bhriain, Anna Brady, Andrew Gavin, Rory Dunne, Ami Hewitt, Joseph Doody, and Catriona Clark, together with The Orchestra of Scottish Opera (cond. David Parry), Opera Bohemia Voices (dir. Alistair Digges and Douglas Nairne), and Jarlath Henderson on Uilleann pipes.
Coinciding with the centenary of Stanford’s death, the official release is 8 March 2024 with the launch event the following week on 15 March. For further information and to pre-order, please visit: https://retrospectopera.org.uk/product/shamus-obrien/
The large pool of performers (both students and staff) at @surreydmm includes a sizeable number of organists this year! That was the inspiration for a two-hour `Organ Plus…` concert held at Guildford United Reformed Church earlier today featuring organ as a solo, duet, and accompanimental instrument, presented by eight of our highly talented young student performers alongside three of our staff and one special guest performer.
Organised by my colleagues Professor Jeremy Barham and Margaret Roberts, the programme included six organists (six!), several of whom also played piano, as well as three singers, and instrumental soloists on flute, trumpet, and cello. It included music by J.S. Bach, Handel, Mendelssohn, S.S. Wesley, Saint-Saëns, Fauré, Langlais, and others.
I chose to play `Star Fantasy (Alleluia: vidimus stellam)` for organ solo by Kristina Arakelyan. Kristina is a brilliant rising star in the contemporary composition world, who won the BBC Young Composers Competition in 2010 and had three works performed at the Proms last year, including `Star Fantasy`. That`s where I first heard the piece, and knew I had to play it some day – and this concert provided the perfect opportunity.
Kristina is also a valued colleague of ours at the @uniofsurrey, where she lectures in harmony, analysis, and music history – a wonderful example of the exceptional calibre of tutor from whom our students learn. And she is very active on social media, so I hope she doesn`t see this post as I`m afraid I wasn`t brave enough to tell her in advance of my plans to play her music!
Posted @withregram • @_eastwindmusic 🎶 East Wind IV Hi friends! Our East Wind IV concert, themed “All Things in Harmony” is now available for booking!
Five composers of Chinese origin will premiere their works in this concert in the UK in association with London musicians. Along with internationally-recognized, classically trained singers and instrumentalists, the ancient instrument, Konghou, rarely heard outside of China and traveling to the UK, especially for this concert, and Peking Opera, the ancient Chinese voice, will combine to bring a unique concert experience to curious London audiences.
✨Highlights of East Wind IV – UK Premiere of 8 contemporary music pieces – Pulitzer Prize-Winning Works – Award-winning music from the “Golden Bell Awards” in China – Konghou, the ancient instrument, rarely heard outside of China – Peking Opera, the ancient Chinese voice – Outstanding musicians from UK conservatoires
🌬️Produced by: @musiciansintheuk_ ✨Project marketing director: @lighthouse_art_ 🙌🏻Poster Animation and Visual Designer: @zchsiung 🎵Background music from Mass Transit (2022) for Piano Quintet by Sam Wu @samwuuhoo
🫶🏻Supported by: @global_musicians_league A Newly Established UK-based music media company; @Yuterwellness A Global Platform about wellness; Taste of Chong Qing; Enco Property Investment Excellence; William London Property Investment
📅 February 10, 2024, 7:00 PM 📍 St John’s Smith Square, London, SW1P 3HA @stjohnssmithsquare 🎫Tickets are now on sale in our bio, 15% discount code【1EASTWIND5】, valid until 21st Jan.
It`s wonderful to see @surreydmm students go in many different directions after graduation – just one of which is musical theatre.
Recent graduate @ryanrusconi_ (BMus Music 2023) has composed the score to @thewhiterose.themusical which, although it`s a work in progress, has been selected for three showcase performances at the Springboard Festival on 10-11 February.
This is also a fantastic example of how the collaborations between students undertaken at the @uniofsurrey set them up ideally for whatever comes next, and how the University serves to connect like-minded students who continue work together on external projects together even after they have graduated.
In addition to Ryan`s involvement as composer and co-bookwriter, this production features @tulsi.music (BMus Music 2022) as Assistant Director, @michellewongwtw (current final-year BMus student) as Singing Lead, and @shannon_0818 (BMus Music 2023) on cello!
Posted @withregram • @thewhiterose.themusical LINK IN BIO: Tickets out now🎟️
Writers: Naomi Moylan-Torke @moylantorke and Ryan Rusconi @ryanrusconi_
Composer: Ryan Rusconi @ryanrusconi_
Lyricist: Zoe McGillicuddy @zoemcgillicuddy
Director: Isaac Bokoko @storybybokoko
Assistant Director: Tulsi Talbot @tulsi.music
Musical Director: Zara Harris @zara.harriss
Movement Director: Dan Hardwell @danhardwell
Singing Lead: Michelle Wong @michellewongwtw
Lead Producer: Fisola Kelly-Akinnoye @fisolak
Producer/Social Media Comms: Zoé Athanasiou @zoe.athanasiou
Dramaturge: Alex Surtees @alextsurtees
Costume Designer: Lily Caccia @cacciasaurus
Sound Designer: Matteo Pomiato @m.pomo
Designer: Geena Nelson @geenanelson.design @geena_nelson
Artist: Nathan Radford @nattyradford
CAST: Sophie Scholl – Gigi Downey @gigidowney1
Magdalena Scholl – Elysia Boyle @elysiaboyle
Sophie/Magdalena understudy/ensemble – Mariya Parekh @mariyaparekh
Robert Scholl – Isaiah James-Mitchell @isaiahzaih Hans Scholl – Michelle Brookes @mimi_brooks_
Christoph – David Bachelor @davbach01
Jakob/AND Robert understudy – Kaine @kainnee_h
Special thanks to @lift_hub for hosting a lot of our rehearsals
One week until music lectures re-start for Semester 2 at @surreydmm @uniofsurrey and we can`t wait! Here`s a throwback to a few promo photos taken during a Music Project guest-lecture I gave to students across all years and all programmes (with a couple of staff colleagues even in attendance!) back in November, on `Reworking in Musical Theatre`.
Retrospect Opera, the record label of which I have been a Trustee since 2016, is ten years old and is having a big sale until the end of the month to celebrate! Co-run by five academics, Retrospect Opera is a charitable organisation specialising in the recording of 18th-, 19th-, and early 20th-century opera and related works by British composers. Its projects are led by our research, for instance, it is on this label that the professional recordings of three of Ethel Smyth`s operas have been released (Smyth being a focal point of my research for many years). Some of our projects have even been recorded at the @uniofsurrey, using the world-leading studio facilities of @surreydmm! This is a fantastic example of how @surreydmm research and artistic activity enriches culture and has a real impact on the wider world beyond academia.
Posted @withregram • @retrospectopera The New Year heralds a significant milestone for Retrospect Opera. Founded in 2014, we are delighted to be celebrating our tenth anniversary in 2024!
We released our tenth recording, Rodwell’s Jack Sheppard (RO010), in November 2023, and look forward to releasing our eleventh, Stanford’s Shamus O’Brien (RO011), in March 2024.
To start our anniversary year in the best way possible, we’re holding a sale throughout January 2024 (prices will rise thereafter). All single CD releases will be available at just £9.99, and all double CD releases at £14.99.
Happy New Year! The @surreydmm students are really hitting the ground running, with the first free concert of 2024 at @uniofsurrey this evening. It`s an acoustic (mainly classical) concert associated with this semester`s Music Project, `Reworking Music` led by Dr Tom Armstrong, for which I gave a guest lecture on musical theatre. Also involved in the concert is Trio Klein, our ensemble in residence, who contributed to the Music Project teaching as well.
Tonight`s concert is organised and run by students and features students on the Music Project module across the years and programmes. And there`s more – an amplified concert (i.e. popular music) for the Music Project module will take place at the same time next week (12 January)! I`m really looking forward to them both!
Posted @withregram • @surreydmm Join us tonight, 5th January from 7.30pm in PATS Studio 1, for the first of our two FREE student Music Project sessions – REWORKED: OVERHAULING THE ORIGINALS.
The concert has been planned, executed and marketed by students studying the Music Project module on the Music BMus course, and will feature acoustic performances from students and Trio Klein, our resident ensemble.
Think covers; mash ups; variations and re-arrangements. One not to be missed! No need to book and everyone is welcome.
PATS Studio 1 PATS Building Stag Hill campus University of Surrey Guildford Surrey GU2 7XH
The photos of @ussu.stringorchestra from the Ensembles Concert earlier in the month are out! The group performed Elgar`s Serenade for Strings, arrangements of Mamma mia! and The Chronicles of Narnia, Swan Lake, and various other works. Congratulations to all the musicians, to the conductors @lewis_liv, @magi_in_milan and Chris Lai (all of whom are @surreydmm students or in Chris`s case, a recent graduate), and to the String Orchestra`s committee. We`re looking forward to hearing the ensemble play again in the New Year!
It`s been a busy week at @surreydmm! The Concert Band and Jazz Orchestra gave a concert last Friday, then it was the Big Band`s turn on Tuesday evening. Our Chamber Choir has also sung at a few events recently, and our weekly lunchtime recital series has continued as well.
Yesterday evening was our Ensembles Concert, featuring three student-led groups: the @ussu.stringorchestra, playing Elgar`s Serenade for Strings, arrangements of Mamma mia! and The Chronicles of Narnia, Swan Lake, and other works; our newly formed Brass Ensemble, performing a variety of brass works and festive arrangements; and the Stag Hill Sinfonia, playing Beethoven`s Sixth Symphony.
Pictured here is the Stag Hill Sinfonia, a small orchestra comprised of students from @surreydmm, @guildfordschoolofacting, and other University departments, conducted by one of our brilliant former conducting students, Chris Lai, who, having recently graduated, has been returning to help us out with various music ensembles.
Tomorrow evening the @uniofsurrey campus will host our big University Orchestra and Choir concert, with repertoire including Shostakovich`s Festive Overture, Borodin`s Polovtsian Dances (with choir) and Dvorak`s Ninth Symphony, as well as Rachmaninov`s Bogoroditse Devo. It`s free to attend if you`d like to come along!
It`s the last lunchtime recital of the weekly 2023 series hosted by @surreydmm at the @uniofsurrey, and also the first performance assessment of the academic year! This was the culmination of over six months` work preparing Britten`s Phantasy Quartet, Op. 2 for public performance (although we gave it a dry run during last week`s lunchtime recital as well). Let`s hope the examiners were pleased!
Oboe: Chris Wiley @dr_chris_wiley Violin: Annabel Sheridan @annabel.mus1c Viola: Angie McShee Cello: Milan Brinker @magi_in_milan
There`s so much going on in the next two weeks in @surreydmm – but then, it is very vibrant Department! I`m only sorry that we capture just a slice of it on social media.
Today alone we hosted our weekly lunchtime recital series at which the undergraduate Music student and highly talented singer @michellewongwtw performed several Puccini arias (I know!); followed by Britten`s Phantasy Quartet with myself (oboe), undergraduate Music student @annabel.2205 (violin), Angie (viola) and undergraduate Tonmeister student @magi_in_milan (cello); and finally Vivaldi`s Concerto for Two Violins in A minor, RV522 with Annabel, Angie (on second violin), and myself (on harpsichord).
(As an aside, many thanks to my brilliant colleagues for going the extra mile to ensure that the experts keep our beautiful harpsichord in fine working order – probably the first time in decades of playing the instrument on and off that I`ve had the pleasure of performing on a working two-manual harpsichord that is well in tune. It`s such a privilege for myself and other staff and students to have regular access to this and other instruments in our collection.)
Then, in the early evening, our amazing University Chamber Choir, fresh from performing at a packed event for the switching on of the @uniofsurrey Christmas lights in Austin Pearce piazza here on campus last Monday, presented a wonderful series of carols at the annual University of Surrey Carol Service in @guildfordcathedral, presided over by the University`s Christian chaplains.
And as if that weren`t enough (and to say nothing of the many rehearsals that have taken place even just today, from 8am to 9pm), in the later evening our Studio 1 hosted Subotnick, an exclusive film screening and multimedia experience based on the life and work of the eponymous `Father of Techno`, Morton Subotnick.
No photos or videos to share of any of these events yet, but here are some posters.
Here`s a photo from yesterday`s recording session on Britten`s Phantasy Quartet, Op. 2 for oboe, violin, viola, and cello at the University of Surrey`s Department of Music and Media @uniofsurrey @surreydmm, recorded by final-year Tonmeister student @_joelinehan_.
It`s been amazing to have the opportunity to take to the studio so that we have a permanent record of our achievements working on this piece across the past six months. It`s also been very helpful preparation for the performances we have coming up in the next couple of weeks, for which the performance students in the ensemble will be assessed.
Along the way, we`ve had fantastic support from staff, colleagues, and students, including a valuable masterclass with academic and performer Dr Inja Stanović, an inspiring coaching session with the violinist Caroline Balding (yes, that`s *the* Caroline Balding! she teaches violin for us, and leads our orchestras), and much encouragement from our Head of Department, the Britten specialist Assoc. Prof. Chris Mark, who literally wrote the book on Britten`s early works and discusses this very piece in the module on twentieth-century British music he`s giving to our undergraduate students at the moment.
And of course it was Britten`s 110th birthday on Wednesday as well!
Oboe: Chris Wiley @dr_chris_wiley Violin: Annabel Sheridan @annabel.mus1c Viola: Angie McShee Cello: Milan Brinker @magi_in_milan
One of the amazing things about studying (or in my case, working) at @surreydmm is that not only do we have access to great practice facilities and talented student performers who are eager to come together and make music – we also have brilliant Tonmeister students to record us (and to be assessed for their work at the same time), and world class studios @uniofsurrey to make it all happen! What`s more – we have a beautiful harpsichord available to play, too!
Here`s a recording session from earlier in the week, of Vivaldi`s Concerto for Two Violins in A minor, RV 522, in preparation for a performance next week at our regular lunchtime recital series. It`s a different collaboration with the same four people who have been working on Britten`s Phantasy Quartet this semester, with our violinist Annabel (@annabel.mus1c) on first violin, our violist Angie on second violin, me swapping oboe for harpsichord, and our cellist Milan (@magi_in_milan) as sound recordist.
Yesterday saw an excellent lunchtime concert by the @uniofsurrey Chamber Choir at Holy Trinity Church @htsmguildford on Guildford High Street.
Based on the concept of an all-night vigil, the one-hour programme comprised music associated with evening, night, and morning, featuring composers who have milestone anniversaries this year including Rachmaninov (d.1943), Byrd (d.1623), Walton (d.1983), and Ligeti (b.1923).
The Chamber Choir comprises 24 students from across @SurreyDMM and beyond, and is conducted by our Professor of Music, Professor Jeremy Barham, who is not only one of the world`s top Mahler specialists and a leading scholar of both jazz and film music, but also a fine organist and choral conductor!
This was the first of four performances by the Chamber Choir across the next month, including our University Carol Service in @guildfordcathedral on 29 November.
Announcing the 2025 publication of "Reading Texts in Music and Literature of the Long Nineteenth Century", the first coursebook to help undergraduates explore the many types of relationship that exist between music and literature. It fosters interdisciplinary study among students in both subject areas. @surreydmm @surreysll
Since teaching at @uniofsurrey is research-led, I`ll be using my chapter for this book (Chapter 4) in our Music Project on `Words and Music` next semester – one year in advance of publication!
Table of Contents
Introduction Phyllis Weliver and Katharine Ellis 1 Fraser Riddell: Listening for Queerness in Vernon Lee’s Decadent Fiction 2 Katharine Ellis: Conjuring Folk Music: George Sand’s The Master Pipers (1853) 3 Alisa Clapp-Itnyre: Children’s ‘Bands of Mercy’ Songs and the Victorian Animal Welfare Movement 4 Christopher Wiley: The Music of the Women’s Suffrage Movement 5 Beth Helsinger: William Morris’s Songs and the Political Body 6 Philip Burnett: Missionary Hymn Adaptations in South Africa 7 Emma Sutton: Representing Non-Western music in Robert Louis Stevenson`s In the South Seas 8 Charlotte Bentley: Hearing Opera in the Louisiana wilderness: Charles Jobey’s ‘Le Lac Cathahoula’ (1861) 9 Jeremy Coleman: Critical Dislocations: Champfleury’s Richard Wagner (1860) 10 Daniel Grimley: Nationalism, Landscape, and Elgar’s Musical Biography 11 Elicia Clements: Musical Subjectivity in Walter Pater`s ‘Duke Carl of Rosenmold’ 12 Phyllis Weliver: Gender as Text-Setting in Tennyson’s The Princess 13 Sarah Collins: Reading Walt Whitman, Hearing Vaughan Williams: The Democratic Politics of Manly Love
One of the amazing things about @surreydmm is that in addition to our fantastic performance students, we also have excellent sound recording (Tonmeister) students who are the Oscar/Grammy/Emmy award winners of the future, as well as state-of-the-art recording and performance facilities at the @uniofsurrey to work with.
Yesterday myself and my wonderful colleague John Warburton (@warblefly) stood in as pianists so that second-year Tonmeister students could gain experience of producing a classical recording, working in a series of small groups under the expert tuition of recording engineer and producer Ken Blair (@ken.blair.insta.65). Ordinarily I would have deferred to a student for this, but sadly all the classical pianists were already in a lecture at the time!
In addition to illustrating the collaboration across different music disciplines and programmes within the Department (in this case, music performance and sound recording), these sessions also demonstrated the interface between teaching and research, since the piece I presented for the recording session was (predictably for me) by Ethel Smyth – I`m currently writing a book chapter on Smyth`s keyboard music so I know this repertoire very well.
The photos show myself (photo 1) and John (photo 2) at the piano, then the student group who produced `my` session, sitting in our main studio control room (photos 3 and 4). Ken is on the far left in photo 3.
Looking forward to the first of what might become a regular jamming event by the @uosbigband tomorrow at Wates on campus @uniofsurrey. The University of Surrey Big Band is an award-winning student-led ensemble comprising mainly @surreydmm students. Bring your instrument for an 8pm start!
Posted @withregram • @uosbigband We are very happy to announce the first UOSBB open jam!
Bring your instrument to Wates next Tuesday (24th) at 8pm for a chill opportunity to play some standards!
Good vibes guaranteed! Big love and see you all then x
Since graduating, @christopherelmslie (Creative Music Technology 2017) has undertaken many high-profile projects as a composer of music for television, film, advertising campaigns and trailers. His music has been featured on Netflix, Disney+, HBO, BBC and more.
His most recent project is co-composing (with Stuart Roslyn) the original score for the new BBC Natural History documentary ’Big Little Journeys’. The final episode is on BBC2 tonight at 8pm!
It was such an honour to have introduced and presided over today`s lunchtime recital @surreydmm @uniofsurrey. Recitals take place every Wednesday lunchtime during semester in our Studio 1 in PATS building on campus, where they are also recorded by our Tonmeister students, and they alternate between classical and pop recitals. No prizes for guessing which was up this week! Here we see the super talented @henryearl_ on bass and @jackee.music on guitar. It was a pleasure to give them informal feedback (together with other students) afterwards as well. Photo credit: @theplayedalone
Trio Klein during Monday`s Music Project lecture @SurreyDMM @UniofSurrey. This semester`s Music Project (for students across the years and music programmes) is on the topic of ‘Reworking Music’, led by Dr Tom Armstrong, who has devised a fascinating lecture series alternating between his own classes and those given by external guest-speakers and performers. Trio Klein were playing, demonstrating and discussing arrangements of ‘Short Ride in a Fast Machine’ and Duran Duran’s ‘Rio’. We hope to get lots of new students’ arrangements for them!
Congratulations to Alex @driiamusic (BMus Creative Music Technology 2021) on your recent signing to @ministryofsound! Your wonderful voice graced many a student ensemble, Music Project, and Performance recital during your time here, and we wish you every success for the future!
Posted @withregram • @driiamusic can’t believe i’m writing this but i’ve just signed to @ministryofsound 🥹 my first record deal & i can’t imagine doing it with anyone more iconic than these lot. think the little diva in the last slide would be v proud of me today.
special shout out to @christiepixi who has supported me since i released my first single – proper full circle moment for us both 💖
and thank you to you lot for creating this community / helping me fulfil my dream job !!! promise i’ll pay u back in lots of new music 😘
The first in a series of small ensemble masterclasses @SurreyDMM @UniofSurrey, held earlier today. This year on the Music programmes, we`ve organised many of our performance students into chamber groups so that they can work together on a piece and receive feedback in a workshop setting from performance students of all years (including Masters) and staff.
This is a masterclass on Britten`s Phantasy Quartet, Op. 2 with BMus Music Programme Director on oboe (me – @dr_chris_wiley), final-year Music student Annabel Sheridan on violin (@annabel.mus1c), University Orchestra player Angie McShee on viola, and final-year Tonmeister student Milan Brinker on cello (@magi_in_milan).
Students and staff from @SurreyDMM and the @uniofsurrey performing quartet music at the @worldspaceweek event at the @tunsgatequarter, Guildford organised by the @uniofsurrey and the @institute_of_physics.
Seen here are the BMus Music Programme Director on oboe (me – @dr_chris_wiley); final-year Music student Annabel Sheridan on violin (@annabel.mus1c); Physics PhD student Alexia Beale on viola (@alexia00002019); and final-year Tonmeister student Milan Brinker on cello (@magi_in_milan).
We played two 45-minute sets and over 20 pieces in total. It was a great opportunity to find and perform space-themed music: from popular music such as `Starlight` (Muse) and `Life on Mars` (David Bowie); to classical music such as `The Blue Danube` (used in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey) and `Jupiter` from Holst`s The Planets; and, for more contemporary audiences, `City of Stars` (La La Land) and `Rewrite the Stars` (The Greatest Showman).
Musicians starting to arrive for our latest #SurreyOrchestraDay earlier today. Over 100 players from all over the county of Surrey, including current and former students of the University as well as musicians drawn from the wider community, came together to rehearse Ralph Vaughan Williams’s `A London Symphony` in just a single day, before a well-attended informal performance this evening at 5:30pm.
Many congratulations to our Director of Conducting, Russell Keable, and our Marketing Officer, Jo Plaistowe, for making this event such a success. They have been running these Orchestra Days at @uniofsurrey since 2017, and we look forward to the next one in Spring 2024!
Up early to be interviewed by Nicky Patrick on the BBC Radio Surrey breakfast show about tomorrow`s @uniofsurrey Orchestra Day and life in @surreydmm, including being No. 2 for Music in the UK in the 2024 Guardian league table.
Dr Inja Stanović gave @surreydmm`s first Lunchtime Recital of the academic year earlier today, which took the form of a lecture-recital about performance research. Inja played pieces by J.S. Bach and Chopin on one of our modern Steinway D pianos (pictured), our 1965 harpsichord (left of shot), and an 1882 Streicher grand piano. She also demonstrated early sound reproduction machines that used wax cylinder and phonograph.
Inja is one of our Surrey Senior Future Fellows, and will be offering her advice to our music performance students in ensemble coaching sessions throughout this academic year, working alongside other performance staff.
The Department of Music and Media`s free Lunchtime Recitals take place in PATS Studio 1, @uniofsurrey from 1:10pm on selected Wednesdays throughout the year. They are well-attended by students, staff, and members of the public alike.
What do BMus Music students do after graduation? Caspar Simonsen (seen here with microphone and bass in hand), who graduated in July and wrote a musical for his final-year project, has composed another musical over the summer, for Youth Theatre Kenya! @rue.21._ @youththeatrekenya
`Matumaini` is a show about waste management and politics, exploring the lives of everybody from gangsters to child labourers at the Dandora dumpsite in the slum neighbourhood of Korogocho, Nairobi. It highlights the work of organisations who use music to inspire and promote change within the community.
Working with a cast of around 70 children from across Kenya from a range of socio-economic backgrounds, as well as a band of 20 made up entirely of musicians from an organisation called Ghetto Classics that works in the Korogocho slums to supply young children with free music lessons, Caspar also musically directed the show, orchestrated the music, and played bass and piano.
The videos linked below are the result of working with the cast for just two weeks and the musicians for one week (note that there were some minor continuity errors and sound issues during the recording process):
What a wonderful demonstration of the power of music to unite communities and bring about positive change for society. Many congratulations, Caspar – keep up the amazing work!
Music and Creative Music Technology students meeting for the first time as a group earlier today as part of the Welcome Week activities at @surreydmm. All of our programmes within the Department are linked, but the relationship between the Music and CMT programmes is particularly strong so we elected (for the first time this year) to schedule a session specifically for students on those two degrees – although we were also joined by some MMus Music students who decided they wanted to hear what we had to say! It`s been really exciting and inspiring these past few days to meet the new intake of c.90 talented students across the departmental programmes (Music, CMT, Tonmeister, Film Production and Broadcast Engineering, and the new Film, Animation and Digital Arts degree – I even met a couple of very interesting Maths with Music students this afternoon) and to see them making friends and connections with one another, both within and across courses.
Last Friday saw a 25-strong orchestra of professional musicians descend on PATS Studio 1 @surreydmm for the commercial recording of Doreen Carwithen`s piano concerto, a fantastic example of how @uniofsurrey supports diversity in the arts. Here`s them setting up, with recording engineer @adaqkhan adjusting the mics, piano soloist @drsamanthaege practising on our wonderful new Steinway D piano, and our student helper for the day, @michellewongwtw, setting up chairs and stands in the background – it was great to be able to offer a student such valuable experience of a professional recording! The conductor was our honorary visiting professor Odaline de la Martinez, who has also appeared this week on BBC Radio 3`s `Composer of the Week` talking about Mexican composer Carlos Chavez (available on catch-up via BBC Sounds).
More photos of @surreydmm BMus Music students performing at the evening reception at last week`s British Association for Victorian Studies 2023 conference @uniofsurrey. The musicians are @annabel.mus1c on violin, @shannon_0818 on cello, @_ameliebradley on voice, and Robin on solo piano (as Programme Director, I accompanied Annabel, Shannon and Amelie on piano). Photo credits to the conference co-organiser (and my wonderful colleague and co-editor) @lucyella13. #BAVS2023
Students from the BMus Music programme @surreydmm performed some nineteenth-century music (Mendelssohn, Schumann, Fauré, and Elgar) at a reception this evening for the British Association for Victorian Studies 2023 conference held at the @UniOfSurrey. Here`s @shannon_0818 on cello and Robin on piano. #BAVS2023
Huge congratulations to Alexander S. Bermange, the MD and composer for the brilliant Idiots Assemble: Spitting Image The Musical @spittingimages (https://www.spittingimagethemusical.com/) which reached its conclusion today following a hugely successful 14-week transfer to @phoenixtheatrelondon in the West End, following its premiere in February at Birmingham Rep. Another of Alexander’s award-winning shows, I Wish My Life Were Like a Musical @iwishmylifewerelikeamusical (http://likeamusical.com/), has been playing all month to sell-out audiences at the Edinburgh Fringe @edfringe, while a separate production of the same musical is currently showing at the Edmonton International Fringe in Canada; next week, it too transfers to London, to Wilton’s Music Hall. It’s previously enjoyed several productions in London, Liverpool, Switzerland, South Korea, and online, received many stellar reviews, and been nominated for several awards, including one announced just yesterday. Alexander (https://bermange.co.uk/) has already written 16 musicals and released numerous albums, and written comic songs for BBC radio! Closer to home, we’re delighted that Alexander has been kind enough to work with the Music programmes here at @uniofsurrey, speaking to the students about musical theatre as well as presenting a lecture-recital (pictured) around 18 months ago. #spittingimage #spittingimagethemusical #iwishmylifewerelikeamusical #edfringe #alexanderbermange
The #FIFA #worldcup final might not have given us the result we hoped for, but it was amazing to hear music by @uniofsurrey graduate @stefanfletchermusic (BMus Creative Music Technology, 2015) used for a key part of the coverage! #Lionesses #BBC #BBCOne #BBCSport
Posted @withregram • @uniofsurrey We are delighted to have achieved an overall student positivity score of 85.3% in the #nss2023. This ranks us 4th in the UK when the headline score is compared to the other institutions normally included in the Guardian University Guide League Table.
Congratulations to our BMus (Hons) Music alumnus Orlando Vas, who sang at the @bbc_proms at the @royalalberthall alongside the BBC National Orchestra of Wales last week. Orlando was a strong presence in the Department and, amongst other things, a key organiser of the big Musical Theatre concerts for my Music Project module in 2018.
Posted @withregram • @tenor_orlandovas Added a tick to the bucket list!
It has been a privilege to sing alongside BBC National Chorus of Wales for the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall.
Finally having performed at the Proms was a remarkable experience. Harmonium was a beautiful piece to sing, but it definitely had its challenges. Can’t wait for what’s to come.
Repertoire: Harmonium by John Adams Conductor: Ryan Bancroft
Many congratulations to the amazing @karakelyancomposer on the performance of her fantastic organ piece `Star Fantasy` by the brilliant @annalapwoodorgan to open tonight`s late night @bbc_proms. Kristina has done a great job for us this year as our tutor for the Harmony 1 and Beethoven`s Ninth Symphony modules. The lit-up blob in the photo is Kristina being spotlighted to take her bow along with two other composers whose works were also performed. The applause lasted so long I had time to switch my phone camera on and take a photo! In addition to this Proms performance, Kristina had three pieces performed (two of them BBC commissions/world premieres) by young people`s choir Voices of the River`s Edge at the Proms at Sage Gatehead last Sunday.
Posted @withregram • @dudupektunc @dr_chris_wiley: simply the best 🩶 you have always been a great support to me, and i can`t thank you enough. without you, i couldn`t have achieved the success i`ve had in recent years. i hope i can become a lecturer like you one day 🙏🏻🍀
What an amazing day at the BMus (Hons) Music graduation @UniofSurrey! I don`t think I`ve experienced a graduation quite like it. I came away feeling very inspired by the students and all the incredible work they`ve achieved over the past few years. Many congratulations to all the graduands! #foreversurrey #classof2023
It`s #graduation day @uniofsurrey and we`re about to award 21 BMus (Hons) Music degrees! Here`s a congratulatory message to all the Music graduands. I`ll see you later today! #classof2023 #foreversurrey
This brilliant production of Rodger and Hammerstein`s Carousel at the Susie Sainsbury Theatre at the @royalacademyofmusic was co-MDed by @niallcasserly @niallcasserly_md who is currently studying MA Musical Direction and Coaching there, having graduated BMus (Hons) Music from the @uniofsurrey in 2022. Niall took my Musical Theatre module – which includes a lecture on Carousel! – during the pandemic in 2020 and I supervised his dissertation on musical theatre last year. While at Surrey, Niall also conducted the University Orchestra playing Dvorak`s Ninth Symphony, and was MD for various Musical Theatre Society productions including Grease. #itstartedatsurrey
Congratulations to @dudupektunc who is one of our wonderful 2023 BMus (Hons) Music graduates @UniofSurrey! Wishing you all the best in your future endeavours!
It`s results day @uniofsurrey! Congratulations to the Class of 2023, BMus (Hons) Music students, and now graduates, of a University that is Top 5 in the UK for Music! I will miss you! #classof2023
(L-R) Mary Dullea, piano; Odaline de la Martinez (Chachi), composer; Donna Bateman, soprano; recording in PATS Studio 1 @uniofsurrey earlier today. The piece being recorded was Chachi`s `After Sylvia` Song Cycle for Soprano and Piano (based on poetry by Sylvia Plath), which will be commercially released next year on the LORELT record label. Chachi is a University of Surrey Music graduate and current Honorary Visiting Professor, to whom the University also awarded an honorary doctorate in 2019 and the inaugural Vice-Chancellor`s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017. The piece recorded today won the Joyce Dixey Composition Prize at the University of Surrey in the late 1970s.
And here they are again! This is Rusty Fridge, comprised of wonderful musicians @kat.welch_, @scarlett_furness, @theplayedalone, and @jackee.music, performing at @uniofsurrey.
University of Surrey Music students performing on the main stage at the Surrey Live Showcase 2023 at the @uniofsurrey earlier today. This is the brilliant band Rusty Fridge, comprising final-year Music students Scarlett Furness @scarlett_furness and Kat Welch @kat.welch_, final-year CMT student Finn West and first-year CMT student Jacky Vernon @jackee.music, performing mostly original music.
University of Surrey Music students performing on the main stage at the Surrey Showcase Live 2023 at the @uniofsurrey earlier today. This is our amazing final-year Music student Robin Bailey @robinbailey1996 performing on keys and voice.
has received an award under the British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grants scheme for a project entitled 'Musical Pairs: Composers, their Partners and Creativity', with Dr Tom Armstrong. @SurreyDMM @UniofSurrey
5,000 reads of my research outputs on @ResearchGate, achieved earlier today. A total of 5,000 reads is not substantial (one of my articles has accrued over 5,000 reads on its own so far this year), but this refers only to reads on one specific platform I don't actually use.
The @UniofSurrey is ranked 7th in the UK in the National Student Survey 2026, above EVERY Russell Group university, with an overall student satisfaction score of 87.7%. It has been in the Top 15 for the last 5 years running.
