TV presenter Jeremy Wade, cartoonist David Horsey, theatre director Thomas Ostermeier and conductor Brian Wright are due to receive honorary degrees from the University of Kent during graduation ceremonies at Rochester and Canterbury cathedrals in November.
Jeremy Wade is a writer and TV presenter with a special interest in rivers and freshwater fish. He studied zoology at the University of Bristol and then completed a postgraduate teaching certificate in biological sciences at the University of Kent.
His first TV series, Jungle Hooks, filmed in 2002 for Discovery Europe, was one of the most-watched shows on multichannel TV. He is now in his ninth year of filming River Monsters. During his career he has achieved a number of notable ‘firsts’. These include filming a large mystery creature in an Amazon lake (dubbed ‘the Amazon Nessie’ by BBC Wildlife magazine), and getting the first underwater footage (with cameraman Rick Rosenthal) of the ‘Giant Devil Catfish’ in India. He will receive a Doctor of Science degree at a ceremony at Rochester Cathedral on Wednesday 16 November.
David Horsey is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and columnist for the Los Angeles Times. David’s work has appeared in hundreds of media outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post and USA Today. David was born in Evansville, Indiana. He attended the University of Kent (1995-96) as a Rotary Foundation Scholar and was awarded a Master’s Degree in International Relations (1997). He began his journalism career as a political reporter, then changed to political cartooning and column writing.
In addition to winning Pulitzers for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 1999 and 2003, he was a finalist in 1987 and again in 2014 after joining the LA Times. In 2014, he received a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for his cartoons on social justice issues. He will receive a Doctor of Letters degree at a ceremony at Canterbury Cathedral on Friday 18 November.
Thomas Ostermeier is an actor and theatre director who now works predominantly at the Schaubühne in Berlin. The Schaubühne is affiliated as an institutional member of the European Theatre Research Network (ETRN), which was founded in 2007 at the University of Kent. As part of this network he has hosted Kent’s students in Berlin and contributed to ETRN research at the University’s School of Arts. Thomas Ostermeier collaborated with Peter M Boenisch, Professor of European Theatre at the University of Kent, to co-author the book The Theatre of Thomas Ostermeier (Routledge, 2016).
Thomas Ostermeier received the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale for his life’s work in 2011. In February 2015 he was named Commandeur des Arts et Lettres in France. He is head of the French German Cultural Council and also a member of the Académie de Berlin. He will receive a Doctor of Arts degree at a ceremony at Canterbury Cathedral on Friday 18 November.
Brian Wright has conducted the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia and London Philharmonic. Brian was born in Tonbridge, Kent. He took up the double bass, playing with the Kent Youth Orchestra, and soon showed an interest in conducting. In 1964 he was awarded a coveted Gulbenkian scholarship for three years’ study at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London. He continued his studies at the Hochschule für Musik in Munich before joining the English Opera Group.
During the late-1970s to mid-1980s, Brian Wright won critical praise for his performances, particularly of Berlioz’s Grande Messe des Morts and Liszt’s Christus at the BBC Proms with the BBC Symphony and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras, as well as for UK premières of Lutoslawski and Penderecki and world premières including Robert Simpson’s 7th Symphony. For the past 25 years, Brian has also been Music Director of the highly regarded Maidstone Symphony Orchestra, a ‘community orchestra’. He will receive a Doctor of Music degree at a ceremony at Canterbury Cathedral on Friday 18 November.