Festival – The Orbital

Harmony in Connection: How Music Brings People Together

4Apr

By Chloe Tiffin-GearingNo Comments

Music, Opinion

Harmony in Connection: How Music Brings People Together

By Chloe Tiffin-Gearing You’re in a crowded festival field, the bass drops, and all of a sudden, you and the stranger to your left are jumping in sync and singing the same lyrics, despite being separated by language. This is what music is about. It’s an invisible thread that can tie people together, transcending social anxieties, backgrounds, borders and beliefs. Whether it be at a sold-out stadium concert or a small club in the backstreets of Brighton, live music will always manage to foster human connection. The energy of being in a crowd and knowing you’re feeling the same pulse of the same song as everyone else in the room can turn strangers into lifelong friends. People across the globe attend events like Lollapalooza, Glastonbury and Coachella, but for a few days, their univer...

Do you know the true origins of Halloween?

31Oct

By Michele TheilNo Comments

Features

Do you know the true origins of Halloween?

Halloween takes place on October 31st each year and is a time associated with trick-or-treating, ghosts, and scary costumes. This celebration has become a huge part of culture, but how many people know its true origins? The traditions we celebrate today have their roots in both Christian and Pagan festivals. Halloween rests on the eve of All Saints Day or All Hallows Day, a time many church practises used to celebrate the saints. The eve of this day became known as All Hallows Eve and which eventually merged to become Halloween. Traditionally, worshippers would go to church on All Hallows Eve to pray and fast before a day of feasting and celebration. All Souls Day, a day set on November 2nd to honour the dead, is also part of Christian tradition. The horror films, zombies, ghosts, ...

1Dec

By Michele TheilNo Comments

News

Big Giving for RHUL’s Future Students

On Tuesday 28 November, Royal Holloway launched the Big Give Christmas Challenge here. It is an annual event in the UK that was founded by RHUL Honorary Fellow Sir Alec Reed in 2007. The premise of the Big Give Challenge is simple: any online donations made within the allotted time will be matched in funding, essentially doubling the donation at no extra cost to the donator. It is the UK’s biggest online match funding campaign. The campaign opened nationally on Tuesday at 12pm and will go on until 12pm on Tuesday 5 December. RHUL is attempting to raise funds for scholarships and work placements to be given to students that require financial support to attend university or undergo important work experience. The official statement on RHUL’s website regarding scholarships tells us th...

No Idea What To Do This Summer? Orbital’s Got Your Back!

20Jun

By Elizabeth RosenbergNo Comments

Lifestyle

No Idea What To Do This Summer? Orbital’s Got Your Back!

With exams over and the summer months upon us almost one thing is on everybody’s mind – holidays. HOLIDAYS. Unfortunately for students, we are dirt poor. After a year of heavy drinking in order to preserve our sanity from annoying housemates/deadlines/lecturers that only know how to read off a PowerPoint presentation, we have no money to go abroad. So if you have no idea what to do this summer here are some ideas of fun things that you can do, in Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s country, to create the perfect 'staycation'. Festivals: I’m yet to really meet anyone who doesn’t like a good festival, albeit in Britain they are somewhat muddy. Reading and Leeds are two usual go-to festivals in the UK but honestly, they are so expensive and if you have the money for that you may as well pay an...

16Jun

By George SomersNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Music

Fifteenth Annual Eden Sessions Kick Off

‘See world-class bands and artists perform in front of our beautiful biomes with the amazing acoustics created by our natural amphitheatre’. The Eden Project, a conservation project nestled within an abandoned quarry in St Austell, Cornwall, attracts over a million visitors per year. While the tropical bio-domes and artificial subterranean atmosphere attract the eccentric tree huggers and renewable energy enthusiasts, the Eden Sessions have become a hub for rockers and appreciators of quality music throughout the south. While the miniature festival’s initial years saw fledgling recognised names such as Elbow and Supergrass grace their stage, Eden has now boasted some of music’s greatest artists over the course of a decade, including Amy Winehouse, Grammy award winners Muse and 80s deity...