STUDENT EXPERIENCE

Through our diverse artistic programme, our industry-leading ART31 project, our extracurricular music offer, and by working closely with divisions and departments across the University, we continue to offer thousands of students creative experiences each year.

Gulbenkian Arts Centre provides hundreds of events and film screenings per year with student discounts across much of the programme. In 2022 we sold over 5,100 student tickets to events, including our weekly 2 For Tuesdays cinema screenings, our annual freshers outdoor screening in September, and a series of free summer outdoor screenings presented in partnership with Kent Hospitality.

Student societies, schools and divisions also regularly hired Gulbenkian Arts Centre throughout the year to host their own events, including T24, MTS, Kent Dance, the Stand-Up Comedy Society as well as Arts & Humanities and CEMS.

ART31, our Creative Engagement offer for ages 13-25, provides free workshops and skills training throughout the year which are all open to Kent students as well as the general public. In particular our Gulbenkian Performance Company for ages 18-25 provided a safe, comfortable weekly space for students to try out performance techniques in a fun and welcoming environment, and our TECH31 & SCREEN31 workshops offered practical skills training working alongside professionals in technical theatre, live event production and filmmaking, as well as opportunities to put these skills into action on live events.

In June several students and graduates also took part in GENFest, ART31’s Youth Takeover Festival, showcasing young creative talent in Kent. Students and graduates showcased theatre performance, stand up comedy and film, as well as leading workshops.

For our Music Department, 2022 saw the resumption of the annual Colyer-Fergusson Cathedral Concert, which featured the University Chorus and Symphony Orchestra and soloists performing in the Nave, with two alumni amongst the soloists. April saw the Composer in Focus event with composer John Woolrich, working with the Orchestra and several piano Scholars, and the annual Summer Music Week festival in June closed the academic year featured a Music Scholars' Lunchtime Recital and the Saturday Gala concert amongst the events. The new academic year in September saw the appointment of a strong field of Music Performance Scholars and Award Holders, including two KMMS Performance Scholars.

2022 also saw the ten-year anniversary of the Colyer-Fergusson Building, marked in December with an Anniversary Weekend and continuing into 2023 with a series of special events, including the premiere of a department commission from Russell Hepplewhite and poet Nancy Gaffield (School of Creative Writing) in March as well as the Cathedral Concert. Music Donors, benefactors and supporters are being invited to events across the whole year as a means of engaging them in conjunction with the University Events Team.

Staff from iCCi have been involved in several teaching sessions in 2022, providing industry expertise on modules including Disability and the Arts and the Theatre Making MA course.

We hosted 2 x 30 hour placements for MA Theatre Making and Creative Producing students in spring 2023, plus a 15-day Arts Internship student. We also offered a two-week work placement to a Psychology undergraduate student and Olubunme Adeyeye, a Masters student from KBS did a work placement with us in June. We have also taken on three students as staff in the creative engagement team, via the University Work Study scheme.

Music Scholars and Award Holders

Our 2022 series of concerts launched in February, with our first-ever livestreamed Lunchtime Concert, as part of the series by one of our Music Performance Scholars, secondyear Michael Lam.

The recital saw Michael, in his second-year in the Kent and Medway Medical School, performing works by Bach, Mozart, Chopin and Schumann, and as well as welcoming a live audience, we livestreamed the recital online.

School of Arts lecturer

In 2022/23, 29 Scholars and Music Award Holders have been selected, drawn from a variety of courses across the University, including our new partnership with Kent and Medway Medical School (KMMS), and are taking a lead role in many of our extra-curricular ensembles.