General Harding's Tomfoolery

Many years ago, the Music department at the University of Kent was given an extraordinary bequest. The Ken Lewis Dance Orchestra (pictured right), a thirteen-piece dance orchestra active in the county from the 1950's onwards, passed its entire set of performing parts to the Director of Music. These priceless folders, still knotted with original string, are a treasure-trove of original parts; brittle with age and use, yet still bursting with musical energy; a wonderful memento of an historic era.

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During the summer of 2013, the Deputy Director of Music, Dan Harding - pianist, conductor and jazz enthusiast - unearthed the folders from the musical archive which had been transferred into the Colyer-Fergusson Building on the University's Canterbury campus. Realising that the line-up of instruments suited a number of returning students, he called the band together for a first rehearsal in November of 2013; and the rest, as they say, is history.

 

Since then, the band has gone on to win Keynestock 2014, the annual battle-of-the-bands competition run by Keynes College, headlined at Canterbury's The Ballroom for Beautiful Town Music's third-birthday celebrations, and played on the main stage at the annual Kent Union Summer Ball. The band also performed during Summer Music Week as part of the University's end-of-year music celebrations, and lent its musical inspiration to the annual VE Day celebrations at St Christopher's School, Canterbury.

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(With thanks to Maureen Morgan for the band photo)