The Mick Jagger Centre

Last updated

The Mick Jagger Centre in April 2009 The Mick Jagger Centre - geograph.org.uk - 1279253.jpg
The Mick Jagger Centre in April 2009

The Mick Jagger Centre is a performing arts venue in Dartford, Kent, England, within the grounds of Dartford Grammar School. It is named after the Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger, who was a pupil at the school. It has two main stages and holds theatre workshops in the summer.

Contents

Facilities

There are two main performance spaces, a recording studio, rehearsal rooms, a bar and gallery. The Small Room has a capacity of 150 seated; the Big Room can seat 350 or hold 600 standing. [1]

History

The centre cost £2.25m, and was funded by a National Lottery grant of £1.7m with a further contribution from Jagger himself. Construction on the arena started in 1998 and it was opened in March 2000 by the Duke of Kent and Jagger. At its opening, Jagger was persuaded by a student to sign the wall of one of the new music classrooms with "I was back", which is still displayed today. [2]

Associated organisations

Since it opened, The Mick Jagger Centre has been home to the Dartford Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1946, and is now the venue for all of the orchestra's four concerts throughout the year. [3]

The Mick Jagger Centre is also the home of the Orchestra of the Thames Gateway, a professional orchestra which commissions new works from local composers from the Thames Gateway region. A concerto for saxophone by composer Adrian Smith was premiered in late 2009, followed by a Violin Concerto composed by Sarah Freestone.

The Thames Gateway Quartet, a professional string quartet which plays and records musical works by students, is also based at the centre. The Dartford Music School, which is attached to the centre, organises an annual music competition called the Dartford Young Musician of the Year, open to all young musicians living or attending school in the Borough of Dartford.

Related Research Articles

Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110, was written in three days.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter Piston</span> American composer (1894–1976)

Walter Hamor Piston, Jr., was an American composer of classical music, music theorist, and professor of music at Harvard University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franz Berwald</span> Swedish Romantic composer

Franz Adolf Berwald was a Swedish Romantic composer and violinist. He made his living as an orthopedist and later as the manager of a saw mill and glass factory, and became more appreciated as a composer after his death than he had been in his lifetime. Prominent in his oeuvre are several operas, much chamber music and four symphonies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Diamond (composer)</span> American classical composer (1915–2005)

David Leo Diamond was an American composer of classical music. He is considered one of the preeminent American composers of his generation. Many of his works are tonal or modestly modal. His early compositions are typically triadic, often with widely spaced harmonies, giving them a distinctly American tone, but some of his works are consciously French in style. His later style became more chromatic.

Ruth Dorothy Louisa ("Wid") Gipps was an English composer, oboist, pianist, conductor and educator. She composed music in a wide range of genres, including five symphonies, seven concertos and many chamber and choral works. She founded both the London Repertoire Orchestra and the Chanticleer Orchestra and served as conductor and music director for the City of Birmingham Choir. Later in her life she served as chairwoman of the Composers' Guild of Great Britain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald Erb</span> American composer

Donald Erb was an American composer best known for large orchestral works such as Concerto for Brass and Orchestra and Ritual Observances.

Alan Ridout was a British composer and teacher.

Samuel Hans Adler is an American composer, conductor, author, and professor. During the course of a professional career which ranges over six decades he has served as a faculty member at both the University of Rochester's Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School. In addition, he is credited with founding and conducting the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra which participated in the cultural diplomacy initiatives of the United States in Germany and throughout Europe in the aftermath of World War II. Adler's musical catalogue includes over 400 published compositions. He has been honored with several awards including Germany's Order of Merit – Officer's Cross.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dartford Grammar School</span> Grammar school in Dartford, Kent, England

Dartford Grammar School is a secondary foundation school for boys in Dartford, Kent, England, which admits girls to its sixth form. All of the students joining the school are considered to be from the top 25% of the ability range, as determined by the 11-Plus examinations. The students come from Dartford, neighbouring towns and villages, and nearby London boroughs, as well as an increasing number of students from Essex. The current roll is 1,203, including 461 in the sixth form. It is the brother school of Dartford Grammar School for Girls.

John Roger Smalley was an Anglo-Australian composer, pianist and conductor. Professor Smalley was a senior honorary research fellow at the School of Music, University of Western Australia in Perth and honorary research associate at the University of Sydney.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John McCabe (composer)</span> English composer and pianist

John McCabe was a British composer and pianist. He created works in many different forms, including symphonies, ballets, and solo works for the piano. He served as director of the London College of Music from 1983 to 1990. Guy Rickards praised him as "one of Britain's finest composers in the past half-century" and "a pianist of formidable gifts and wide-ranging sympathies".

Sarah Frances Beamish is a British composer and violist. Her works include chamber, vocal, choral and orchestral music. She has also worked in the field of music, theatre, film and television, as well as composing for children and for her local community.

Daniel Asia is an American composer. He was born in Seattle, Washington, in the United States of America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Jaffe</span> American composer (born 1954)

Stephen Jaffe is an American composer of contemporary classical music. He lives in Durham, North Carolina, United States, and serves on the music faculty of Duke University, where he holds the post of Mary and James H. Semans Professor of Music Composition; his colleagues there include composers Scott Lindroth, John Supko, and Anthony Kelley. Jaffe graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 1977; he received a master's degree the following year from the same institution. During his time in Pennsylvania, he studied with George Crumb, George Rochberg, and Richard Wernick.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ebenezer Prout</span> English musical theorist, writer, teacher and composer

Ebenezer Prout was an English musical theorist, writer, music teacher and composer, whose instruction, afterwards embodied in a series of standard works still used today, underpinned the work of many British classical musicians of succeeding generations.

The Centre for Young Musicians, or CYM, is a specialist Saturday music centre formed in 1970 and based at Morley College in London, England. It offers musical training to students 5 to 18 who play a musical instrument and has seen more than 50,000 students pass through its doors since it first began.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Bull's Head, Barnes</span> Pub in London, England

The Bull's Head, also known as The Bull, is a pub in Barnes in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England. It hosts live music in an attached music room that has a seated capacity of 70 people.

Philip Bračanin is an Australian composer and musicologist.

Tom Norris is an English musician, composer, ensemble leader and songwriter, who plays classical violin with the London Symphony Orchestra and also manages a solo pop music career.

Timothy McAllister is an American classical saxophonist and music educator, who, as of 2014, is Professor of Saxophone at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance.

References

  1. "The Mick Jagger Centre - Dartford's Jazz, Folk, Roots, Guitar and Rock Music Venue". Archived from the original on 21 October 2016. Retrieved 20 October 2016.
  2. "Jagger's family affair at school". BBC News. 30 March 2000. Retrieved 27 August 2009.
  3. "Orchestra | North Kent & S East London | Dartford Symphony Orchestra". Dartford Symphony. Retrieved 10 January 2021.

51°26′42″N0°12′20″E / 51.44500°N 0.20556°E / 51.44500; 0.20556