I’ve sent
Radio Six
International a
2 hour Christmas Show. I
understand that it will be
scheduled over The Xmas period.
Dates should
be on the Radio Six International
website around December 17th
2016.
I hope that
this will be of interest to
Members of the London Light Music
Meetings Group. .
Join us for 2
hours on a “Christmas music
sleigh ride” and hear three
different and novel arrangements
of Jingle Bells!
There’s
lots more including:
Teresa
Brewer serves
up Christmas Cookies, Dickie Valentine
recites his Christmas alphabet, Petula Clark
delivers a special Christmas
Card, Adam Faith
remembers a Lonely Pup, Val Doonican
recalls the Mysterious People The BBC Concert
Orchestra
introduces
their Waltzing Cat!
Some
of the greatest crooners
are also on board for the ride
and there’s a very special
tribute to the Mull of Kintyre by
the Vienna
Symphonic Orchestra!
Join Andre
Leon in a Nice Radio Production
for Radio Six International
October 2016
Stephen
Hough Takes Light Music to Desert
Island!
International
concert pianist, arranger and
composer Stephen Hough appeared
on Desert Island Discs on the
morning of Friday the 14th
October. Among the wide ranging
music he chose for the programme
was Birdsong at Eventide: a light
music classic by Eric Coates.
Stephen Hough
discovered he liked playing the
piano when he went to visit his
aunt's house and could pick out
more than one hundred nursery
rhymes on her piano. After much
pestering, his parents bought him
a cheap second hand piano from an
antique shop. He went on to
become one of the youngest
students at the Royal Northern
College of Music before winning a
scholarship to The Juilliard
School in New York.
His career began
in 1983 after winning the
Naumberg Piano Competition. He
divides his time between New York
and London and performs all over
the world. He also has a prolific
recording career and has won many
awards for his discs.
You can hear the
full broadcast or download the
MP3 here:
I received the
word this morning that our
longtime RFS member and colleague
John Parry passed away
(yesterday) in Florida at age 76.
John, outside
of being one of the original
members of the RFS, was involved
for a number of years at
Chappell's in London before re-
locating to Toronto and starting
his own production music library,
Parry Music.
Thanks for all
you're doing to keep things
going.
Take care,
Forrest
---------------------------
From David Farnon:
Hi Tony
Many thanks
for sending me this. I didn't
know.
He was a
lovely man and a good friend who
did a lot for Bob's music.
Hope you're
keeping well.
Kindest
regards,
David
September 2016
Tony
Clayden acquires the record
collection of the late Alan
Bunting
Alan Bunting, who
passed away in January 2016,
amassed a huge collection of CDs,
LPs, ‘45’ and
‘78’ rpm records, all
of which have now been purchased
from Alan’s family by Tony
Clayden.
Amongst several
thousand items are a great number
of light-orchestral recordings by
Percy Faith, Ray Conniff, David
Rose, David Carroll and many
others. Some are in mint, unused
condition, whilst many others had
been pre-owned and were obtained
by Alan from all over the world.
Also included is a
very large collection of record
catalogues, many dating-back to
well before WW2, and a selection
of music reference books.
These will all
require a great deal of
sorting-out, but eventually it is
hoped to produce a definitive
list.
In the meantime
Tony invites preliminary
enquiries from serious
enthusiasts who are potentially
interested in this material. He
may be contacted as follows:-
by telephone -
020-8449 5559 (from outside the
UK +44 20 8449 5559)
by post - 49
Alexandra Road, Well End,
BOREHAMWOOD, Hertfordshire, WD6
5PB, England.
July 2016
Radio
2 Musicals unearthed for the
first time in 20 years
BBC Radio 4 Extra (on DAB and
online) is currently broadcasting
a selection of classic Broadway
musicals. These were produced for
Radio 2 by John Langridge and
broadcast in 1994; they have not
been aired since. With the
exception of Sweeney Todd (a
National Theatre production) they
were recorded in front of invited
audiences
at the Golders Green Hippodrome
and feature star-studded casts
plus the Stephen Hill Singers,
accompanied by the BBC Concert
Orchestra. They are complete
performances including dialogue.
The shows are:-
Saturday July 16th
SWEENEY TODD with Denis Quilley
& Julia McKenzie
Saturday July 23rd GUYS &
DOLLS with Mandy Patinkin &
John Challis
Saturday July 30th CAROUSEL with
Mandy Patinkin and Janie Dee
Saturday August
6th JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR with
Roger Daltrey & Tony Hadley
Saturday August 13th KISMET with
Michael Ball & Dolores Gray
All transmissions
start at 9.00 am
All are available
to listen to via the i-Player for
30 days after transmission.
Anthony Wills
July 2016
Marni
Nixon, known as Hollywood's
"invisible voice", has
died aged 86
The singer
appeared, uncredited, on many of
the biggest movie musicals of all
time - dubbing the voices for
Deborah Kerr in The King and I,
and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair
Lady.
She also sang the
high notes for Marilyn Monroe in
Diamonds Are A Girl's Best
Friend; and "ghosted"
Natalie Wood's vocals on West
Side Story.
Nixon died of
breast cancer on Sunday, her
agent confirmed to the BBC.
For most of her
career, the classically-trained
musician remained unknown.
Twentieth Century Fox made her
sign a contract saying she would
never reveal the ghost-singing on
The King and I. The story only
came out later, when Kerr herself
credited Nixon's work in a press
interview.......
Harry
Rabinowitz, composer and
conductor, has died aged 100
The composer and
conductor Harry Rabinowitz, who
conducted the scores for more
than 60 films including Chariots
of Fire, has died aged 100.
Born in
Johannesburg in 1916, he came to
England in 1946 to study at
London's Guildhall School of
Music and Drama.
He made regular
appearances on TV and radio in
the 1950s and '60s, working with
the likes of Stanley Holloway,
Terry-Thomas and The Goons.
He was a conductor
on BBC Radio and went on to
become head of music at BBC TV
Light Entertainment, before
moving to London Weekend
Television in 1968.
He remained there
until 1977 - the year he became
an MBE.
Appearing on
Desert Island Discs last year,
Rabinowitz attributed his success
to his learning to read music
"very quickly and very
accurately" at an early age.
Rabinowitz had
been due to take part in a
concert with the London Symphony
Orchestra at the Barbican in
London in November to mark both
his birthday and his long career.
A fuller tribute
to Harry Rabinowitz can be found
in the Obituaries Section.
May 2016
Aspidistra
Drawing Room Orchestra
Spring Bank Holiday Concert 2016
A rather chilly
Monday May 30th saw the 2016
Spring Bank Holiday Concert given
by the Aspidistra Drawing Room
Orchestra. This was their
fifteenth consecutive event and,
after a number of years at
Lauderdale House in
Highgate,(North London), for this
year the concert returned to its
original 'home', Burgh House in
Hampstead.
This has a fine,
if somewhat compact, music room,
which was totally filled to
capacity; this did not deter the
audience, which included several
LLMMG 'regulars', from enjoying a
really splendid afternoon of high
quality 'Palm Court' music.
The latter is very
much a 'threatened genre' and
opportunities for hearing live
performances are, sadly,
few-and-far- between in an age
where it has been totally
abandoned by music publishers and
the BBC alike.
The orchestra has,
however, managed to amass a
considerable collection of sheet
music which includes compositions
from Europe, America and the UK.
We were treated to
a wide-ranging selection of
pieces, some by well-known
composers such as Edvard Grieg,
Reginald King, Montague Ewing,
Haydn Wood and Ivor Novello.
Other, less familiar names also
figured prominently, and included
a wonderful work by Theo Bendix -
The Butterfly -
featuring an amazing virtuosic
performance on the flute by
newcomer Zara Jealous.
The repertoire
included both purely instrumental
and, additionally, vocal numbers
performed by Camilla Cutts and
also Liz Menezes, who is the
orchestra’s second
violinist.
Some of the items
were quite familiar even if their
names were less-so, e.g. Serenata
(Rimpianto) by Toselli and Whistling
Rufus by Kerry Mills.
The orchestra
performed with its customary
combination of precision, panache
and great enthusiasm; it’s
obvious that the players very
much enjoyed these works as much
as the audience did !
So, once again,
many congratulations are due to
Adam Bakker and the Aspidistra
Drawing Room Orchestra for
continuing to 'fly the flag' for
the noble art of 'Palm Court'.
? Tony Clayden
2016
April 2016
Three
English Dances
by Roger Quilter
For many years I
have wondered why it is that
whilst Roger Quilter possessed
considerable talents as an
orchestrator, this well-known
work is almost always performed
in an orchestral arrangement by
Percy Eastman Fletcher.
The mystery was
finally solved recently when I
happened to be in contact with Dr
Valerie Langfield, who is a music
teacher and tutor based near
Manchester. Dr Langfield
has taken a great interest in the
life and work of Quilter, and is
the author of a very
comprehensive and
highly-acclaimed biography of the
composer.
The definitive
answer is that the Dances were
originally conceived and written
for full orchestra. Percy
Fletcher was then commissioned to
re-score the work for
much-reduced forces, because it
was considered likely to maximise
its potential for sales and
hirings in that form.
(It appears
that Fletcher often undertook
arranging work of this kind. I
have come across another example
- viz. his orchestral
arrangements of some pieces by
Samuel Coleridge Taylor, which I
believe were made after their
composer’s death).
The original
full-orchestral score was never
printed, and because it only
exists in manuscript form it is
seldom, if ever, performed.
Roger Quilter
himself made and published
further arrangements for solo
piano and piano duet; the latter
was given by Dr Langfield and
fellow-pianist David Owen Norris
at a Quilter festival some years
ago.
Mantovani was the
most successful orchestra leader
of his time, selling over 60
million albums in his career. He
also recorded over 30 half-hour
TV specials in 1958 and For
Lovers Everywhere includes three
superb TV shows on a theme: Music
for Latins features sensual tango
rhythms; Music from Many Lands
showcases love songs from around
the world; and Musical Holiday
takes us to the romantic capitals
of Europe. Special guest singers
include Petula Clark and John
Conte. The DVD also includes
comments from Ken Bruce, Len
Goodman and Paul Barrett.
On
25th February 2016, a performance
of Robert Farnon’s 'Prelude
to the Lake of the Woods' was
given in Kenora, Ontario, Canada.
Our concerts are
held in Knox United Church in
Kenora, Ontario. The orchestra is
the Thunder Bay Symphony. Thunder
Bay is 550 km east of Kenora; it
is part of their mandate to
perform in the smaller
communities in Ontario.
We have had the
orchestra perform here for over
35 years. This concert featured
the composition by Robert Farnon,
entitled Prelude to the Lake
of the Woods, which is where
Kenora is situated. The lake
features 14,524 Islands and goes
as far south as Minnesota in the
USA.
The composition by
Robert Farnon was found in the
archives of the local museum. We
couldn’t find the individual
parts anywhere, so we had the
score transcribed for the
Symphony. This was a very
successful evening as it not only
featured the music but
outstanding photographs of the
lake area.
We are not 100%
sure that Robert ever visited the
area, however, after setting the
music to the photographs we have
convinced ourselves that he must
have. The pictures were shown on
a large 75” TV sitting on
top of the organ console that is
visible in the right corner of
the photo.
Len Mark
Robert Farnon
wrote this piece about our
beautiful 'Lake of the Woods' in
the early fifties. This video
features my photos taken mostly
of the northern portion of Lake
of the Woods.
Wayne Kelso
March 2016
ALAN
BUNTING
It is with the
deepest regret and profound
sadness that we have to report
the death of Alan Bunting on
Wednesday March 16th 2016, after
a short illness.
Alan was one of
only a handful of premier experts
in the field of digital recording
restoration in the UK, and over
the years carried out a great
deal of such work, especially for
many record
companies active in the
field of reissues.
Together with the
late David Ades, Alan was
instrumental in the establishment
of the Golden Age Of Light Music
series of CDs for the Swiss
Company Guild Records,
contributing to both the
technical and repertoire aspects
of what would become a
phenomenally successful project.
After David’s
death in 2015, Alan assumed
responsibility for the overall
management of the series and
several more CDs were produced.
At the time of his death, further
titles were under discussion
although only one, Great American
Light Orchestras Vol. 4, has been
fully completed, and will be
released in mid-2016.
Our sincerest
condolences are extended to his
son, daughter and grandchildren.
Tony Clayden
March 2016
---------------------------
Alan will be
sorely missed.
I treasure my copy
of his Percy Faith discography.
May he rest in
Peace.
Peter Elsdon.
---------------------------
From Peter Burt:
That's really sad
news about Alan and a big shock.
He will certainly
be much missed.
---------------------------
Alan deserves
credit for all the Light Music
restoration he has done, which
must be in the thousands.
He and David Ades
did so much together – yet
they only ever met once!
Peter Worsley
Assistant Editor, This England
& Evergreen magazines
---------------------------
Tony Foster
writes:
I have just seen
your communication regarding the
death of Alan Bunting, what sad
news.
I obviously did
not know Alan personally, but
together with David Ades, they
were a fine team in working
together to provide we – who
love Light Music so much –
many hours of listening pleasure,
with all their hard work in
creating the Guild series of CDs.
This really is the
end of an era. He will be much
missed.
---------------------------
Martin Eccles
writes –
Hi Tony –
Re: Alan Bunting
and David Ades
Obviously you knew
these two wonderful men better
than most having been so heavily
involved with the RFS, but I can
tell you that although I was
never forunate enough to meet
them in person and only spoke to
them over the telephone, their
genuine warmth, enthusiasm and
willingness to share their
extensive knowledge of the music
business – and in particular
recorded music for orchestra, was
very touching. Alan often had me
in stitches laughing at some of
the stories he shared with me as
a BBC producer and his having to
deal with awkward artists with
over inflated egos and of a
particularly volatile
personality! He struggled, at
times having to tread so
carefully and diplomatically with
many of them.
With Alan’s
knowledge of the work of Percy
Faith, he would often contact me
regarding a certain Faith
recording, asking me if I could
help identify in musical terms
particular aspects of
orchestration and arrangement of
how Percy Faith had created
specific orchestral affects in
his arrangements – which I
was very happy to do for Alan,
being a violinist and woodwind
player myself.
On many occasions
David Ades was most kind in
helping me identify certain
orchestral recordings I was
trying to find and was never
stinting of his time spending
many hours seeking out
information to pass on to me. I
don't know how Moira was able to
cope with David's time spent in
running the RFS and editing the
excellent magazine. He was a very
dedicated man for the cause of
orchestral music.
Not only have we
lost two extremely knowledgable
experts and indeed
"giants" of the music
industry, but two of the most
genuine, warm and affable men it
has been my pleasure to know. The
world is a much poorer place for
their loss.
With all good
wishes,
Martin Eccles
---------------------------
Sad news re Alan
Bunting, his expertise was made
apparent to me via his work for
the Nelson Riddle Society,and
many other recordings,
especially,the, 'Golden Age of
Light Music'.
He will always be
remembered in RFS.
Phil Napier
(Leyland, Lancashire.)
---------------------------
From Terence and
Grace Gilmore-Jones
How very sad and
what another great loss this is
to the world of Light Music. We
mourn his passing, as we did that
of dear David, but we thank them
both for an amazing achievement
over many years, not least in the
incredibly notable and valuable
Guild series most recently. That
will stand as one of the greatest
monuments to high professionalism
both musically and technically,
revealing – as it does
– the enormous field of
high-grade Light Music, superb
performance standards which reach
back many decades, and all
recollected in the booklets with
faithful and accurate detail.
Bravo David and
Alan – THANK YOU BOTH SO
MUCH. Always remembered with
admiration and gratitude!
Stuart Barr
uncovers the colourful career of
British composer and transgender
pioneer, Angela Morley.
In 1972, Wally
Stott's transition to Angela
Morley made front page news.
Wally was famous. He was composer
for the Goon Show and Hancock's
Half Hour, and music director to
stars like Frankie Vaughan and
Shirley Bassey. "TV Music
Man changes his sex"
screamed the headlines. Where
would Angela go from here? Stuart
talks to Angela's friends and
colleagues to discover how she
made her mark in the music
business, as a woman and a man.
And he explores the special
qualities of the music she wrote
and arranged, from the famous
'Hancock' tuba theme to her work
alongside John Williams on
blockbusters like Star Wars and
Superman.
January 2016
RONALD
CORP TURNS 65
Ronald Corp OBE
turned 65 on 4th January 2016.
Ronald Corp was born in Wells,
Somerset in 1951, and now resides
in a converted watermill in rural
Essex. As one of Britain’s
most prolific
Composer-Conductors, he has a
busy schedule of concerts,
rehearsals, education workshops,
community projects, overseas
tours and recording sessions as a
foil to the many meditative hours
he devotes to his life-long
passion of composing. Read the
full biography on his website here.
More details about
Ronald Corp's Hyperion Recordings
here
ANDRE
LEON’S RADIO REPLAYS FOR
CHRISTMAS
