College music student wins Cambridge first prize
Posted on Friday 28 May 2010
First year music student, Lauren Spiceley, wins Cambridge University Essay Competition
Farnborough Sixth Form College student Lauren Spiceley, 17, has just been awarded first prize in a Cambridge University Essay competition to encourage A level music students to think about the breadth and depth of their studies. She collected her certificate at a special ceremony held at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, recently.
Last November, Director of Music at the College, Paul Bambrough, told the students of the Cambridge essay titles and Lauren chose: How has the medium of listening - live or through recording - affected our perception of musical works in the modern age?
Lauren said, "I am really interested in the changes which have occurred since recording technology has become much more widely available. I wanted to explore the impact of the purity of recorded music - sometimes perhaps the sanitization of music - against the excitement and drama of a live performance."
Lauren is a frequent concert-goer and she used her personal experiences as well as a wide range of resource materials, from academic treatises on music, through information on the sleeves of Jazz albums, to an article in the Guardian on why audiences no longer clap between movements.
Lauren said, "When I heard that I had won first prize, I was really excited because in the end I had had to rush to complete the essay to meet the deadline. It was a real surprise to win a prize in a competition organised by Cambridge University."
Mr Bambrough said, "Lauren really did do all of the research and write the essay entirely on her own. She presented me with a copy of her essay after she had submitted it. It was an outstanding and original piece of work so I am not at all surprised that it won the Cambridge competition."
Lauren will be taking her A levels next year and in the autumn she will be applying for a place at university to study music. "If I apply to Cambridge I think it might be to Fitzwilliam - although Oxford has a good course too!"
