News

University makes a milestone debut at The Sage

(23 January 2006)

Head of Music at Durham University, Professor Peter Manning, has hailed a weekend concert at The Sage, Gateshead, as a landmark event for musical life the North East.

“It was an outstanding success.“ said Prof Manning. “This important event marks a new milestone in an expanding programme of educational outreach events organised by the Music Department, involving schools and concert venues across the North-East.” The opportunity to perform in the region’s premier international venue under guest conductor Matthew Taylor was facilitated by a new partnership between Durham University and The Sage. This link was the direct result of special recognition by the national higher education funding body (HEFCE) who recently designated Durham’s Music Department a Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning in Music (CETL). The link also has further support from the University’s Centre for Contemporary Music. A primary objective of the Music CETL, which links all the universities in the North-East, is ‘inclusivity’, in terms of widening participation for students within the University and the region and increased public access to university music. For its debut in The Sage’s Hall 2 on 22 January, the Durham University Orchestral Society played two works. One was ‘The Enigma of Arrival’ written by Martyn Harry, Head of Composition in the Music Department, and the other was Nielsen’s Symphony No. 1. Earlier in the day, in Hall 1 at The Sage, Ray Farr, Durham’s Head of Brass Band Studies, conducted a concert of brass band music which was recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 2.