Below are reviews from recent concerts and shows.

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10p Short, St Anselm's School, Canterbury

JANUARY and February have not been the most uplifting of months for one reason or another but the year 10 at St Anselm's School kicked off their half-term with something to smile about.

They were privileged enough to witness the first ever Kent performance by emerging acoustic rock band, 10p Short.

The band is based in Guildford, but lead singer and primary songwriter, Thom George, hails from Canterbury and due to high demand from the pupils, the band agreed to travel down to perform four songs.

10p Short have been together for just over a year and are more accustomed to notable music venues such as The Boileroom in Guildford, The Troubadour in Chelsea and have also been broadcast from The Bedford via the internet.

Friday 13th was their first ever school performance and with the tough audience of adolescent 15-year-olds with arms crossed, it could have gone one of two ways.

A minute into the first song and the audience weren't moving or displaying much of a response, but that soon changed. The witty foursome are comfortable on stage and with each other, their performance was polished and as seamless as ever.

Adam Fawcett on lead guitar and Thom George are a comedic double-act.

A couple of wisecracks, quick-quips and banter between the pair and the crowd were won over.

Soon students from all over the school were flocking to hear the incredible guitar solos from Adam, the strong vocals from Thom, dazzling drums by Matt Child and sexy bass and backing vocals from new member, John Young.

During their second song, aptly titled Science, the audience went crazy.

Despite having "I love you's" and school ties thrown at them, the band maintained composure and continued to play their songs with relative ease.

Thom even managed to bend down to put one of the school ties around his neck.

A stampede broke out when the band rounded up the assembly with Teach You, a song they have written and perfected in just a fortnight.

The 200 pupils were rushing to try and get their hands on the 32 10p Short CDs the band had brought with them.

While this did leave many disappointed, the music is available to listen to at www.myspace.com/10pshortmusic and the group will be returning to Canterbury on March 21 at the Orange Street Music Club.

10p Short are definitely not short of talent or future prospects. Watch this space!

Hayley Andrews

The Barbirolli Quartet, Faversham Music Club

The Barbirolli Quartet concert was a resounding success.

The quartet comprises four brilliant young musicians from Canada, Wales, Australia and New Zealand and has been in existence since 2003.

The four are Rakhi Singh (violin), Katie Stillman (violin), Ella Brinch (viola) and Victoria Simonsen (cello).

The quartet is clearly destined for greatness and has already a formidable list of awards and engagements world-wide to its credit. It was a great privilege to have been present to see and hear the performance.

The programme consisted of Mozart’s Quartet No. 22, Beethoven’s Quartet No.11 and Ravel’s one and only Quartet, in F Major. The Mozart is a late work and the composer managed to complete only three of the six quartets, commissioned by the King of Prussia.

It is not an easy work and was brilliantly played, the contrasts between the movements brought out with great skill.

The Beethoven is a work of the Middle Period and is of great depth and, as we were told, its pauses tell us almost as much about the serious meditative nature of the music as the notes themselves.

The four players deftly and skilfully mastered this difficult work to great acclaim.

After the interval we had the Ravel Quartet, composed during his student days. It has always been popular for its mixture of pastoral lyricism and lively rhythm. It was played with consummate skill and understanding and the pizzicato work was especially impressive. It was a lovely finale to a superb musical evening.

• The next Faversham Music Club event will be a piano recital by local composer and pianist, John McCabe on Thursday, March 12, at 8pm in the assembly hall, Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, Faversham. Tickets cost £10 (students £5), on the door or reserved by contacting Rodney Foord on 01795 535937.

Michael Frohnsdorff

Ben Frith and Richard Jenkinson, Music at St Peter’s, St Peter’s Methodist Church, Canterbury

Ben Frith (piano) and Richard Jenkinson (cello) are well known, both as soloists and chamber music players.

Their recital for Music at St Peter’s, as Richard Jenkinson explained in his introduction, was made up of a group of pieces which they particularly enjoy playing together.

This enjoyment was very evident in their musically and technically impressive performance.

All the composers represented, except one, were French.

The exception was the Belgian César Franck whose Sonata in A written originally for violin and piano was a very suitable choice for Valentine’s Day as it was written for the wedding of the violinist Ysaye and the melody in canon in the last movement is said to portray the harmony and partnership of happy marriage.

Debussy’s Cello Sonata was the only other extended work in the programme and the second half consisted of five short pieces, some well-known and others less familiar. The centre piece of these was Messiaen’s Louage à LÉternité de Jésus from the Quartet for the End of Time, a piece in which the composer evokes the stillness of eternity.

A Sonata Breve by the renowned cellist, Paul Tortelier was a descriptive piece telling the story of Alexander the Great’s horse, Bucephalus who was afraid of his own shadow.

Alla Gitane was a transcription of a piano piece by Paul Dukas and the concert ended with two pieces by Saint Saëns, the ever popular The Swan from his Carnival of the Animals and the Allegro Appassionata which made an exciting finish to an evening which had given great pleasure to the audience

After acknowledging the applause Ben and Richard played Pièce en forme d’un Habeñera by Ravel, the other great name of 19th century French music.

Joy Webster

Oare String Orchestra, Alexander Centre, Faversham

Oare String Orchestra’s concert drew one of its largest ever audiences.

Extra seats had to be set up to hear the programme that included popular works by Bach and Carl Nielsen, a Sibelius rarity, a first performance of a piece by London composer Bill Harris and what was probably the first stand-alone performance of Havergal Brian’s Reverie for Strings.

This brought enthusiasts for the music of this once-neglected composer from as far afield as Devon and Hertfordshire, some of them staying overnight in Faversham.

Furthest of all had come composer Marjan Mozetich, who had flown over from Canada. It was Oare String Orchestra that had first brought the music of this now leading Canadian composer to the UK and Europe. Under its regular conductor Peter Aviss the orchestra has now given the European premières of four of Mozetich’s compositions for strings, including his harp concerto El Dorado and his more recent violin concerto Affairs of the Heart, which was played in 2005 by Kent violinist Penny Howard in Faversham.

The concert celebrated the 70th birthday of the orchestra’s co-founder president, Don Goodsell, who had chosen the programme.

Don had 'discovered’ the music of Marjan Mozetich while in Toronto in 1991. He encouraged Mr Aviss to add it to the orchestra’s repertoire.

The audience response certainly confirmed that decision.

Having lived most of his life in Canada, Mozetich, now 60, was born on the Italian-Slovenian border.

Some may well detect traces of these origins in his radiant and deeply spiritual music.

At the concert he introduced his three-movement piece Postcards from the Sky while warmly acknowledging the orchestra’s dedicated support over the years.

Don Goodsell

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Alan Prosser and Adrian Hackford, Whitstable Folk Club, Whitstable Labour Club

Is unrequited love the same thing as rejection?

This philosphical poser was prompted by one of the songs brilliantly performed by Alan Prosser and Adrian Hackford.

If that riddle’s too deep to ponder, try this, from the title of an Irish reel: How many mice would it take to make a pair of mouseskin shoes?

You just never know where a piece of music will take you - to another country, another mood or emotion. And sometimes it just raises impossible questions, like these.

No question, though, about the ability of these two musicians.

Alan Prosser, of Oysterband fame, was a big hit on his last visit to the Whitstable club with Tim Edey. This time, stepping in at the last minute after the planned Roy Bailey gig was cancelled owing to ill health, Alan brought along incredible fiddle player Adrian. They both play in The Country Counts, and Thursday’s gig had a definite country feel, with songs about lost love, broken-hearted truckers and the banks of the Mississippi.

We travelled from America’s Deep South to the depths of the Irish countryside with Adrian’s Irish reels. The Irish Tourist Board should snap him up, these were so atmospheric. He’s the kind of fiddle player who makes you wish you had kept up with the violin lessons at school.

So we got a bit of folk, country, blues and jazz, a philosophical debate on the nature of love and an unusual suggestion for your next pair of shoes. Music really does broaden the mind.

Debbie Neech

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Dick Whittington, The Lindley Players, Whitstable Playhouse

Before curtain up I met director Peter Hunt. He told me to expect something a bit different.

I had a flashback to a Nestle announcement in 1999. They’d revealed plans for a Kit Kat Chunky. Could it be as good as the original, I wondered? And would the audience, who’d been adoring the Lindley panto for more than 20 years, want something new?

What Peter meant, but what modesty prevented him from saying, was that he’d improved on perfection.

The Lindley’s reputation is deservedly fantastic, so when Peter contacted the writer to seek permission to change his script, Alan Frayn said he’d heard of the Lindleys and told Peter to go ahead and embellish.

And it was wonderful, of course. All the main characters were outstanding and gave 100 per cent.

I especially enjoyed the interaction between the effervescent Fairy Bowbells and the dastardly King Rat, played by Cheryl Mumford and Chris Coates respectively.

Idle Jack (Russell Sutton) was as bright as a button and Was I Wazir sung by the Sultan of Morocco, played by Peter Bressington, and his new nose in the second act, was a highlight.

Peter was proud that so many members of the cast had come through from the Lindley’s youth groups.

Tom the Cat played by young David Rogers was a great character and David’s electric guitar playing earned him a few swoons from the ladies.

There were saucy jokes, in-jokes, old jokes, new jokes – Boris Johnson and Russell Brand got a mention - and the chorus was the most energetic yet and really enjoyed their lively routines to popular songs.

But special mention must go to those behind the scenes who created the costumes, props, lighting, music, sound, make-up, prosthetics and set. You could feel their love for the theatre in every detail.

There was so much to look at, hear and feel, from an exploding kitchen and bubbles appearing as if from nowhere, to a rat’s lair and a luminous underwater scene.

The audience’s gasps must have been rightly gratifying for those unseen creatives to hear.

No one could have guessed which bits were new, apart from Bob Spaul losing an earring and that got such a laugh that it probably stayed.

Marnie Summerfield Smith

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Mozart’s Requiem Pergolesi’s Magnificat, Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, London Handel Orchestra and Canterbury Choral Society and Youth Choir, Canterbury Cathedral

The Cathedral’s acoustics, sublime for choral works, are not always so kind to soloists.

Pergolesi’s Magnificat was joyfully rendered by the chorus and orchestra, but neither Michael Pearce’s bass nor Christina Astin’s contralto solos were easy to hear. In Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola there was a similar problem; Adrian Butterfield (violin) and Florence Cooke (viola) performed with immense energy and skill, but if you sat towards the rear of the building this was discernable only in passages where the orchestra was playing softly or resting.

Pearce’s voice, however, seemed to have acquired added strength in Mozart’s Requiem; his contribution to this stunning performances was rich and resonant. Andrew Staples’ tenor solos were strong and expressive and soprano Sophie Bevan sang powerfully but with unique sensitivity. Christina Astin, sadly, was again disappointing in this work; she rarely looked up from her score and there was scant heart in her performance.

But even in the back seats you could appreciate the predictably first-rate London Handel Orchestra’s fluent response to Richard Cooke’s conducting and his control of the chorus - this time including the youth choir - was evident in their precisely disciplined range of dynamics and the inspired quality of their singing, exemplified especially by the fiery Dies Irae of the Requiem.

Elaine Godden