October 2025

For information about past and upcoming episodes of Friday Night is Music Night on BBC Radio 3 you can follow this link: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001xmxc/episodes/player

It shows previous episodes which are still available for replay via BBC Sounds (for up to 30 days after broadcast).

Coming up soon:-
BBC Radio 3 at 7.30pm

Friday 24th October 2025
A Tribute to Tony Bennett
A tribute to the timeless voice of Tony Bennett, with singers Louise Dearman and Lance Ellington. Richard Balcombe conducts the BBC Concert Orchestra live from Chichester.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002kr5m

Friday 31st October 2025
Halloween Spooktacular
Ellie Slorach conducts the BBC National Orchestra of Wales to celebrate Halloween, including Danse Macabre, Night on Bald Mountain, and classics from film and TV.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002kzm9

Friday 7th November 2025
Nottingham Soundstage Festival
Anna-Maria Helsing conducts the BBC Concert Orchestra in music showcasing classical music used in TV and then music specially composed. From the Nottingham Royal Concert Hall.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002lcs2

September 2025

Happy Birthday!

Pete Murray OBE

100th Birthday on Friday 19th September

Pete Murray OBE, British radio and television presenter and actor. He is known for his career with the BBC, including stints on the Light Programme, Radio 1, Radio 2 and Radio 4. In the 1950s, Murray became one of Britain's first pop music television presenters, hosting the rock and roll programme Six-Five Special (1957–1958) and appearing as a regular panellist on Juke Box Jury (1959–1967).
He was a recurring presence in the BBC's coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest. Pete retired in 2002 before he returned to broadcasting for a Boom Radio special on Boxing Day 2021, over 70 years after his career began. He returned to the station on Boxing Day 2022 where he presented a two-hour show alongside his friend David Hamilton.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Murray_(DJ)

Johnny Mathis

90th Birthday on Tuesday 30th September

Johnny Mathis, American singer, started his 69-year career with singles of standard music. He is one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century and became highly popular as an album artist, with several of his albums achieving gold or platinum status and 73 making the Billboard charts.
Mathis has received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for three recordings. Although frequently described as a romantic singer, his discography includes traditional pop, Latin American, soul, rhythm and blues, show tunes, Tin Pan Alley, soft rock, blues, country music, and even a few disco songs for his album Mathis Magic in 1979. Mathis has also recorded seven albums of Christmas music. In a 1968 interview, he cited Lena Horne, Nat King Cole, and Bing Crosby among his musical influences.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Mathis

September 2025

RICHARD RODGERS

BBC RADIO 3, 4pm MONDAY 15th SEPTEMBER
AND THE REST OF THE WEEK.

Episodes are available on BBC iPlayer here:
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002j7g9

August 2025

Dancing in Vienna

SOMMCD 0708
Release Date: 15th August 2025

SOMM Recordings celebrates the wealth of popular concert music produced in Vienna in the 19th and early 20th centuries with a release called Dancing in Vienna, an exhilarating collection of waltzes to set your feet tapping. The Philharmonic Concert Orchestra is led by the versatile Scottish conductor, Iain Sutherland, whose previous, wide-ranging collaborations with SOMM have received enthusiastic critical response: "strong and trenchant, often exhilarating, never sentimental," Gramophone; "getting pretty much everything right, every nuance and subtle rhythm," Amazon USA.

More information: somm-recordings.com/recording/dancing-in-vienna/

July 2025

CLEO LAINE, jazz singer
1927-2025

It is with sadness that we report the passing of Dame Cleo Laine, on July 24th 2025, at the age of 97.

We will publish a full obituary in due course.

July 2025

Iris Williams
1946-2025

An obituary by Anthony Wills can be found here.

July 2025

Lalo Schifrin
(22nd June 1932 – 26th June 2025 – Aged 93)

An obituary by Tony Clayden can be found here.

May 2025

Sophisticated Harmony

The lives and music of six great British arrangers

Oliver Lomax
Foreword by Dick Walter

Arrangers were once the backbone of the music business. They were the ones behind the scenes – the archetypal backroom boys – who spent hours in solitude, often working to crushing deadlines, scribbling notes onto score paper which would subsequently be heard in myriad contexts: behind a singer or vocal group; or as an accompaniment to comedians, variety acts, all types of pop group, contestants on gameshows … You name it, and the arrangers had to be able to score it, in any style and for any instrumental combination – for TV, radio, documentaries, films, theatre, records – and it always had to be good and delivered on time. In other words, they had to be completely flexible and utterly professional.

"Arrangers are the people who can transform a single, frequently uninteresting line of music into a glorious, unforgettable, and transformative aural experience," explains the arranger Dick Walter in the Foreword to Sophisticated Harmony, a new book in which Oliver Lomax pays tribute to the arrangers’ art, focusing on six British arrangers who worked on London's thriving music scene of the 1950s, '60s, '70s, and '80s. "They provide all the accompanying material: the rich string chords, the punchy brass figures, the swirling saxophones, the intricate woodwind figures, the interesting contrapuntal lines – and they often change the rudimentary chords initially provided into whatever suitable harmonic material the job calls for."

Each arranger featured here had his own niche. Ronnie Hazlehurst became synonymous with television through his role as the BBC’s Music Advisor to the Light Entertainment Group. So too did Anthony Isaac, though his specialist area was drama. Trevor Bastow and Steve Gray both built up large catalogues of library compositions, while Gray's skill as a big band writer enabled him to pursue a separate career in Europe. After working in the American television industry, Dick Doerschuk came to London where he spent two decades arranging for TV and radio. And major artists on both sides of the Atlantic benefitted from Peter Knight's brilliant orchestrations, among them the Carpenters, Barbra Streisand, and Harry Secombe. Drawing on interviews with their closest family, friends, and colleagues, Oliver Lomax builds up a picture of not only the arrangers themselves, but also the circumstances that shaped their musical development.

Moreover, there is insight into the rigours of writing music for television – especially the BBC's prodigious light entertainment output – as well as radio, documentaries, and recorded music libraries, including interviews with session players, technicians, and producers who were involved in these areas.

This, then, is a vivid account of a fascinating era of music-making, given from the arrangers' perspective – the people who were at the heart of the music business and the wider entertainment industry.

Full information on the Dutton Vocalion website

May 2025

Ronald Corp OBE
1951-2025

It is with great regret that we record the death of Ronald Corp, OBE, who passed away suddenly on May 7th 2025, aged 74.

LLMMG attendees will remember that Ronald was our guest at the meeting in May 2024 and is of particular interest as the creator of a series of six Light Music CDs, four of British and one each of European and American compositions. These were on the Hyperion label, and featured his New London Orchestra, with which he made many other recordings. He specialised in Choral Music and ran two choirs in London.

A prolific composer himself, Ronald was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1999, latterly serving at the Church of St Alban the Martyr In Holborn.

An obituary for Ronald Corp can be found in our Obituaries Section.

Tony Clayden
May 2025

May 2025

New CD from Gavin Sutherland

The new album by GAVIN SUTHERLAND conducting THE FAST TUNES ORCHESTRA and ROYAL BALLET SINFONIA.
Newly recorded at Abbey Road Studios

available from Ebay on CD or Double LP

52 tracks (see Ebay item descriptions for full details)

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