Grenville Hancox, Professor of Music, Canterbury Christ Church University
Music as a metaphor for life
Tuesday 2 March, University Centre Folkestone
This new series of Public Lectures at UCF all have the broad theme of Creativity and Communication to reflect the significance of UCF’s role in the heart of Folkestone’s arts regeneration.
Professor Hancox will explore ideas concerned with the centrality of music to our lives and the need to position it accordingly, influencing our well being and societal development.
Biography
Grenville Hancox received his music education at the Birmingham School of Music, University College Aberystwyth and University College Cardiff. Formerly a teacher in secondary schools, his pioneering classroom methods were promulgated through a national project advocating both widening participation and the centrality of music making in the curriculum, both elements underpinning the work of the department of Music of Canterbury Christ Church University.
His present research interests have developed from a belief in the universal power of music and the fact that singing as an activity can bind all humanity together. A nine year collaborative project with Professor Stephen Clift, concerned with the benefits of singing on well being, has supported this belief in music as an agent for change. This has resulted not only in publications, but also in the establishment of The Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health, financed by a research grant from the Roger De Haan Family Trust. One of the long term aims of the research is to provide a means by which singing will be accessed on prescription.
Grenville is also creating an archive of the Naxos Quartets of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, a five year project begun in 2002 in collaboration with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and the department's resident quartet, the Maggini String Quartet. The archive will consist of recordings of in camera rehearsals, workshops, and world premiere performances, investigating the process of interaction between the composer and the performers. The project reached the first stage of conclusion with the performance of the 10th Naxos Quartet in October 2007 and this year he contributed a chapter to the seminal Cambridge University text on Maxwell Davies.
As a clarinet player, he has performed throughout the U.K., in Europe and in the U.S.A., most recently with the Maggini and Sacconi Quartets and the London Mozart Players. As a conductor he has directed choirs and orchestras in performances of major works such as Britten War Requiem and Bach Mass in b minor and founded the Cantata Choir, a small chamber choir offering students the opportunity to work on demanding choral repertoire, performing regularly within the University, the south east and on the European mainland. In 2004, together with the Cantata Choir, he gave the world premiere of Sir John Tavener's Maha Maya commissioned by the University for a Canterbury International Festival concert John Tavener and the English Choral Tradition.
Grenville Hancox was appointed Professor of Music in 2000, made an MBE in the Queens Birthday Honours List in 2005 for services to Music in Higher Education and received a civic award from the City of Canterbury in 2006 for services to the community.