Guildhall Students’ Union: a musical trio of student societies

4 August 2020

From the Musical Theatre Society, to Football Society, to VegSoc and the LGBTQ+ Society, Guildhall’s Students’ Union cater for a wide variety of tastes. Here, we focus on some of our more music-based groups, including the Experimental Music Society.

They’re not just for Guildhall’s musicians - if you’re an acting or production arts student, you are welcome to get involved and share your passions.

Musical Theatre Society

We spoke to Lewis Bell, musical director of Guildhall’s Musical Theatre Society, who will be going into his 4th year of BMus Keyboard (classical piano) this September.

“I came to Guildhall four years ago, joined the society and ended up becoming its musical director. We enjoy all things musical theatre through performing in cabaret nights and concerts, from solo Acapella groups to full orchestra and singers. We have around 80 students, ranging from instrumentalists and singers through to production arts students who all share the love of musical theatre.

I also founded a musical theatre playthrough orchestra a couple of years ago which has been successfully playing through musical theatre scores in their full entirety through our monthly playthrough days.

The society is a way for instrumentalists and singers to explore musical theatre repertoire which requires a new style of playing/listening compared to traditional orchestral/vocal repertoire.”

What’s your favourite musical?

“This is a difficult one but is has to be Follies by Stephen Sondheim!”

Experimental Music Society

Harry Harrison and Eric Fabrizi have been at the forefront of developing the Experimental Music Society at Guildhall. Eric studied BMus Electronic Music and graduated this year, and Harry is currently studying BMus Composition.

Harry: "Primarily, we aim to have music-based fun. We hold evening and weekend sessions a few times a month where we chat and play music (always with a mid-session biscuit break!). Our sessions range from playing student pieces to improvising to silent film, to multi-channel electronic workshops, video game-related tomfoolery, and more. We have premiered many student pieces in the Guildhall's New Music Society concerts, and also perform outside of Guildhall.

"Over the past few months, we have of course had to think outside the box, and so we compiled an online concert (with audience participation!) in April. We plan on continuing to host events online and in person, exploring and experimenting with music in whatever way possible".

Eric: The society is open to all students at Guildhall. We have active members studying composition, performance and electronic music and would love for this cross-departmental collaboration to widen. We had a session with the amazing Mirador Collective in which we improvised sound to their live visuals.

At the society’s first event in February 2019, we played #7 from La Monte Young’s Compositions 1960, a beautifully simple piece with complex outcomes. I wanted to create a low-pressure environment in which we could try things without expectations.

I think it’s sometimes important to make art without a goal in mind. Experimentation means putting process before product and I believe that embracing this leads to innovative music-making. You can read our short and sweet manifesto or pop by our Facebook group.

What new music would you recommend?

Eric: "I can wholly recommend the band Jockstrap (both members are Guildhall music graduates). I think they’re making some incredibly exciting music. They recently released Wicked City, a fabulous foray into many corners of the alternative pop world. I’m also really into Hausmusik Kollektiv, a wonderful project collecting scores that fit onto one page of A4, to be played, created or experienced at home".

Harry: “I would recommend Julius Eastman - an extremely influential but somewhat forgotten American minimalist composer, who is definitely worth knowing about! His thrilling music incorporates pop, openness, and political provocations. Check out Stay On It.

Also Gazelle Twin - an electronic musician and producer from Brighton pushing boundaries with her enthralling, abrasive, again politically charged music. Try Hobby Horse".

New Music Society

The New Music Society (NMS) offers opportunities for any composer at the school, regardless of their principal study, to showcase their work in a supportive environment. Mark Bowler, now a Junior Composition Fellow at Guildhall, has been running the society alongside Robert Crehan and Sam Gooderham. Mark told us a bit more about what its members got up to.

“The society has been running for at least four years. I joined when I began studying at Guildhall in 2017 and had a piece performed at the first concert that year. It was great to have somewhere to showcase music without having to consider assessments.

The society is definitely cross-music department - many of the recent sign-ups are performers who are interested in playing new music at the concerts, so it's not just composers. Most of the music that is submitted for each concert is from either the Composition or Electronic Music departments, but we welcome submissions from across the School.

Rob, Sam and I are about to finish our studies, but the three of us will be around Guildhall next year as Junior Composition Fellows and will support the new presidents of NMS, Harry Harrison and Joanna Ward. I know they have some inventive ideas at hand to ensure that NMS thrives during 2020-21".

What’s been one of the biggest challenges?

"Our spring and summer concerts had to be cancelled because of Coronavirus but rather than let the situation put an end to NMS 2019-20 we decided to curate an album to raise money for Help Musicians UK charity. We had twenty-nine submissions from current students and recent graduates, all of which made it onto the album, and we've raised over £600 so far. You can take a listen (or buy the album!) online, or check a selection of the composers talking about their contribution to the album on YouTube".