Fri 03 Sep 2010

- The award-winning student news website of Imperial College

Search by Date | What is Live!? | Got a Story? | Advertise on Live!

NOTICE: Due to a large amount of spam, a new CAPTCHA has been added to the discussion form. You will need to correctly fill in the two words shown in the image each time you submit a comment. Failure to do so may result in the loss of everything you have typed, so please don't forget this bit.

Live! - Culture

ArtsFest Finale Concert

Feb 25 2009 02:35

Ashley Brown and Kirsty Patterson

A week of arts, culture and music brought to you by the AEB culminated in a showcase of ICU's instrumental, vocal and dancing finest in the Great Hall on Friday.

MTSoc, Belly Dancing, Windband, Dance Club, Funkology and the Techtonics were just some of the acts involved

Artsfest drew to a close on Friday Night in its usual toe-tapping, crowd-raising, show-stopping way with acts as diverse as a Bassoon Quintet and full Symphony Orchestra to Chinese Wushu.

The night opened with a celebration of British Cuture with Five Scottish Dances from Sinfonietta. Sinfonietta have been requested to play a concert of traditional British Music when they go on tour to Berlin in the Summer. The tour, with ICU Choir and Big Band, will continue to raise money for this year's Artsfest Charity 'Hospices of Hope' which provides care for terminally ill patients in Eastern Europe.

Sinfonietta were followed by the amusingly named Freddie and the Faggotts who had a similarly amusing line-up of well known theme tunes arranged for Bassoon Quintet. Their performanes of themes such as Inspector Gadget, Doctor Who and Thomas the Tank Engine were absolutely inspired and this reporter recommends they take the show on tour. I'd definitely put my name down as roadie!

Get Flash to see this player.

View some highlights from the ArtsFest Finale Concert

Chinese Wushu gave their usual high standard of performance mixing both the energetic and the serene beauty of the martial art in their magical choreography. Chamber Choir gave a rousing rendition of 'Baby You Can Drive My Car' where special mention should go to the colourfulness of their concert dress, a welcome departure from the standard black attire.

The finals of dance club's competition saw the qualifying lecturers Martin McColl (Physics), Emma McCoy (Maths) and Martin Liebeck (Maths) battle it out with two dances each in front of the panel of expert judges. McCoy's jive was bouncy and energetic but not 'happy' enough for the judges with Martin McColl taking the trophy after a saucy rendition of the Cha Cha.

Techtonics were another highlight of the concert, with the a capella male 'choir' wowing the audience with not only their voices and choralography but also their multi coloured shirts (and Eugene's hat). Techtonics gave their performance debut in the Artsfest Finale which was received enthusiastically by the crowd. They will be doing a joint concert later this term in Holy Trinity Church with Imperial College String Ensemble and are hoping to be victorious in next Thursday's Imperial Idol.

Full length DVD's of the 2009 Artsfest Finale Concert will be available to buy from Live! and Stoic TV shortly. Reserve your copy by emailing the Editor.

Email this Article | Share on Facebook |

Print this Article

Discussion about “ArtsFest Finale Concert”

The comments below are unmoderated submissions by Live! readers. The Editor accepts no liability for their content, nor for any offence caused by them. Any complaints should be directed to the Editor.

1. Brasil

Feb 25 2009 09:54

No capoeira this year?

2. I remember the time...

Feb 25 2009 11:13

Well they did turn up about an hour late for the last Artsfest Finale and then went on FOR EVER...maybe next year though if next year's Capoeira committee promise they won't screw up again?

Anyway was a good show this year - loving the new acts!

3. Performer

Feb 25 2009 12:11

How much are these dvd's likely to be? More importantly, are the profits going into the live/stoic coffers or more rightly to the ArtsFest charity Hospices of Hope?

4. Ashley Brown

Feb 25 2009 13:47

DVD Cost: depends on a number of factors, including how long the final edit is and how many people are interested (e.g. the show is about 2h 20m raw I think, the bitrate required to get that onto one single-layer DVD would make it poor quality - so its a toss up between a dual-layer DVD and a 2-DVD set). There are sections of nothing but dark stage but probably not 30 minutes/an hours worth.

If lots of people are interested they can be professionally mastered of course!

The last set of DVDs didn't make any profit (they're still available), and we got a reasonable deal on some of the components which we might not get again...

5. Eugene

Feb 25 2009 15:59

Great video and great story... thanks to the Live! team for such fabulous coverage of the event... I'm fully expecting to buy a DVD when it comes out!

6. Lauren

Feb 26 2009 08:08

Thanks for covering the event Ashley and Kirsty - you guys did an amazing job! DVD for me too please!

7. .

Mar 19 2009 16:46

What's happening with the DVDs??

8. Ashley Brown

Mar 19 2009 16:54

Some of the sound has some problems, so I'm going to try and clean it up (people ignoring the fact that we'd taped off some seats, walking over the tape and hitting microphones etc). We've got a good stereo sound track but it needs patching in places.

I have an edit suitable for a DVD done, it just requires the soundtrack to be fixed. I've also been a bit busy with other things, as you may have noticed ;)

9. Ashley Brown

Mar 19 2009 16:56

Actually, if there are any volunteers who'd like to watch the proto-DVD and give me timecodes of places where the sound is rubbish, that might assist with the process.

10. Ashley Brown

Mar 31 2009 15:44

These are ready to go to print, pre-order now from here, for ?5:

http://www.imperialcollegeunion.org/media-cg-171/live-news-website-artsfest-2009-grand-finale-dvd-pre-order-1308/

They should be ready by the time people come back after Easter!

11. Rob F

May 15 2009 13:26

I seriously don't remember any cameras being there. I must have been panicking too much to notice. Never before in my life had I regretted not watching "strictly come dancing". Still, congratulations to Lauren and the team for making it run so smoothly. I can't improvise like Billy can and any hold-ups would have been cripplingly cringe-worthy.

12. Kirsty Patterson

May 15 2009 14:04

Did you get a DVD Rob? They're quite snazzy. I have mine in the Guilds Office if you want to take a look. Just drop me an email.

Add your comment:

Name:
Email:
Comment:
Do This:
Anti-spam:	If you can see this, something is broken (either with your browser, or with our system). Please leave the box below empty, or your comment will be considered to be spam.