Featuring Visiting Fellow Deborah Pritchard
Dr Deborah Pritchard was a Visiting Fellow at Keble during Michaelmas and Hilary terms. She is an award-winning British composer known for her compositional approach informed by synaesthesia.
Dr Deborah Pritchard, Visiting Fellow 2022-23, writes:
It’s been a huge privilege to hold the position of Visiting Fellow at Keble College, Oxford, over the last six months. I’ve had the opportunity to enrich the culture and inspire creativity through a wide range of diverse and engaging events, whilst also writing my own music: my violin concerto Calandra, premiered by Jennifer Pike and the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican in December, and a new solo violin piece Light for Harriet Mackenzie, in collaboration with the artist Maggi Hambling.
During my tenure, William Holman Hunt’s famous painting The Light of the World, which hangs in Keble’s side chapel, provided the starting point for my new piece for choir and violin. I set sacred texts on light, evoking the painting's promise of hope and freedom, and the piece was premiered at the Advent Carol Service by violinist Greta Mutlu and the Keble College Chapel Choir, conducted by Christopher Bucknall.
The painting also brought into fruition a new solo violin piece called World’s Light that spoke of further luminosity through texture, colour, light and darkness.
This was premiered in a specially curated public event in February, presenting a series of meditations in response to the painting including my music, Pre-Raphaelite poetry and readings given by the actor and scholar-practitioner Benjamin Blythe. Holman Hunt’s message of hope also pervaded two spoken word and music events in both October and February with the Jamaican poet and human rights lawyer Dave Neita, violinist Harriet Mackenzie and cellist Gabriel Francis-Dehqani.
The first event voiced poetry and music on themes of diversity and social justice, whilst the second occasion was a performance of Dave’s play Uplift, a heartfelt celebration of the Windrush Generation.
I also gave a series of lectures on my own creative practice, including one during Keble Arts Week that explored my synaesthesia, compositional technique and creative work with the artist Maggi Hambling. This culminated in a joint exhibition with the students where I displayed my paintings, music maps, visualisations and graphic scores, born from my interdisciplinary approach.
It’s been a joy to be part of college life and I will treasure my time at Keble. I look forward to continuing the relationship in the future and keeping the light of Holman Hunt ablaze in my music.
