A new
'Lockdown' video from
The Aspidistra Drawing Room
Orchestra
Whistling
Rufus by Kerry Mills
arranged by Roland Anderson
The original sheet
music, published by F. A. Mills
of New York in 1899 depicts
Whistling Rufus on the cover
playing a guitar, "A great
musician with a high position,
was Whistling Rufus, the one-band
man." The video we've used
will be familiar to some of you,
no doubt - Steamboat Willie,
notable for being the first
cartoon animation with fully
synchronised sound. Aspidistra
were not part of the original
production!!
December 2020
Tico
Tico (arr Trevor Wye) arranged
for 6 flutes played by Katherine
Bryan in lockdown
Kenneth
Alwyn, conductor, composer and
writer,
has died aged 95
Described by BBC
Radio 3 as "one of the great
British musical directors",
Alwyn was known for his many
recordings, including with the
London Symphony Orchestra on
Decca's first stereophonic
recording of Tchaikovsky's 1812
Overture.
He was also known
for his long association with BBC
Radio 2's orchestral live music
programme Friday Night is
Music Night, appearing for
thirty years as a conductor and
presenter, and for his
contribution to British musical
theatre as a prolific musical
director in the 1950s and 1960s.
He was a Fellow of
the Royal Academy of Music and
married the actress Mary Law in
1960. His website and the first
volume of his memoirs A Baton
in the Ballet and Other Places
were both published in 2015. The
second volume Is Anyone
Watching? was published in
2017.
... brings
together some of the wonderful
musicians of English National
Ballet Philharmonic for a special
working from home rendition of
Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake Overture.
... In the spirit
of #ClapForOurCarers, the
#ENBPhilharmonic have remotely
recorded a special excerpt from
the ENB production of Raymonda,
dedicated with much love and
gratitude to #OurNHSPeople and to
#HealthWorkers all over the world
?? #PlayForOurCarers #ENBAtHome
... Some of the
UK's finest musicians, still in
lockdown owing to COVID-19 and
its effect on the arts, pay
tribute to the late Dame Vera
Lynn, by coming together to
perform her legendary hit
"We'll Meet Again".
... Gavin's
orchestra-at-home perform a song
adopted as a tribute to the NHS
and their immense dedication and
commitment during the challenging
times the COVID pandemic has
seen.
November 2020
A fifth
'Lockdown' video from
The Aspidistra Drawing Room
Orchestra
Yearning
(Just For You) by Joe Burke Performance by the
Aspidistra Drawing Room Orchestra
in lockdown. In this video, Mabel and
Fatty make guest appearances. It
is the first of their videos with
vocals.
The Aspidistra
Webpage now also features a blog. This allows you
to give feedback on any
Aspidistra activity or related
musical matters. If you feel
inclined to tell them something
in future, write it on the blog
page, and they can all see it.
Please spread the
word and sign up for thier
Newsletter.
November 2020
Another
'Lockdown' video from
The Aspidistra Drawing Room
Orchestra
Girls in
Grey by Charles Williams
arranged by Roy Bell
Performance by the Aspidistra
Drawing Room Orchestra in
lockdown.
Girls in Grey was
originally written for the
Women's Junior Air Corps during
World War II and later became
known as the BBC television
Newsreel theme.
November 2020
Peter
Hope’s 90th birthday.
Peter Hope, noted
Light Music composer and
President of the Light Music
Society, celebrated his 90th
birthday on November 2nd 2020. A
friend and former colleague of
the late Ernest Tomlinson,
Peter's career began in the early
50's as a copyist and arranger.
He soon branched
out into composing and wrote a
great deal of library music,
principally for the publisher
Mozart Edition and frequently
under his pseudonym of William
Gardner. Arguably, his most
well-known opus is The Ring Of
Kerry Suite, which deservedly won
him an Ivor Novello award.
To mark this
auspicious occasion, a two-CD set
of many of his pieces has been
issued, and is reviewed here.
Radio Six
International devoted an
hour-long programme to the life
and work of Peter Hope and we are
pleased to reproduce it, with due
ackowledgement below:
November 2020
André
Rieu has a new CD + DVD Reported by Peter
Burt
ANDRÉ RIEU has a
new CD + DVD, 'JOLLY HOLIDAY' on
Decca 5488182. The CD is live and
is too much a singalong for my
liking. The video is an
interesting look behind the
scenes including the stage
building for his Christmas
concert. As with so many things
in this strange year it is
unlikely there will be his usual
best-selling studio produced
album.
October 2020
Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra - A new
piece of British Light Music
On 30 September,
in their first Spotlight Series
concert, musicians from the RPO
brass and percussion sections
performed Jim Parker's 'A
Londoner in New York' to a
socially distanced audience at
Cadogan Hall.
Experience the
hustle and bustle of the Big
Apple through this live recording
in association with ILC Music
Degrees (West Suffolk College)
and enjoy an extract from a
conversation with Jim Parker and
trombonist Matthew Knight as the
introduction. You can listen to
the full interview with the
composer here.
Find out more
about the Spotlight Series of
concerts here.
September 2020
BBC
Instrumental Sessions
As part of the BBC
Instrumental Sessions, the
bassoons of the BBC orchestras
perform Eric Coates’s
Calling All Workers, arranged by
Steve Magee.
More information
about these sessions can be found
HERE
August 2020
Did you
hear Brian Reynolds on Serenade
Radio?
CALLING
ALL WORKERS
Remember 'Music
While You Work' on the BBC? The
programme began 80 years ago this
year.
Announced in the
Radio Times as a “half
hour’s music meant specially
for factory workers to listen to
as they work”, it soon
proved a favourite with all
listeners, as its familiar
signature tune by Eric Coates
rang out.
On August Bank
Holiday Monday, Serenade's Brian
Savin traced the programme's
fascinating history along with
Brian Reynolds.
You can
listen to the programme again via
our Streaming Audio page HERE
August 2020
'Lockdown'
videos from The Aspidistra
Drawing Room Orchestra
'Heather on the
Pampas' by Sydney del Monte,
arranged by Anastasia Arnold
La Morenita by
Mátyás Seiber arranged by Roy
Bell
The Donkey
Serenade by Rudolf Friml arranged
by Adam Bakker
August 2020
Light
music featured as background
music for TV shows
You might like to
know that light music is often
used as background music in the
BBC TV programme 'Antiques
Road Trip'.
A recent episode
in the series was particularly
productive with the following
items spread over two programmes:
On a Spring
Note
Coronation Scot
Runaway Rocking Horse also Swedish Rhapsody,Tick
Tock Tango and Fun Fair
(these three items were played by
Ray Martin and his Orchestra, the
latter two being adjacent items
on a CD.
Not all of the
programmes feature as many items
of light music as the example
above but there is quite often
something to delight us. Also 'Car
SOS' uses light music in
some episodes.
If you feel so
inclined you might still be able
to view these programmes on
'catch-up' TV.
Peter Luck
July 2020
RIP Johnny
& Annie
We have lost two
major figures in Our Kind Of
Music in the space of a month.
The arranger
Johnny Mandel died on 29th June
aged 94. He worked with all the
greats including Frank Sinatra,
Peggy Lee, Barbra Streisand, Tony
Bennett and Natalie Cole. He also
wrote The Shadow Of Your Smile
and the Theme from Mash.
And Annie Ross of
Lambert, Hendricks and Ross (and
sister of Jimmy Logan) died in
New York last week aged 89, four
days short of her 90th birthday.
She was born in Mitcham (Surrey)
in 1930.
Anthony
Wills
July 2020
Ennio
Morricone (1928-2020)
Obituary by Chris
O'Reilly on Presto Classical
website
The Oscar-winning
Italian composer, who wrote over
400 film scores and around 100
concert works, has died in Rome
aged 91.
Morricone was born
in Rome in 1928, and received his
first music-lessons from his
father Mario, a professional
trumpet-player; as an
undergraduate at the Accademia
Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the
trumpet was initially Ennio's
first study, but following
postgraduate work with Goffredo
Petrassi (to whom he would later
dedicate his Concerto for
Orchestra) his focus shifted to
composition and arrangement.
Throughout the
1950s, Morricone worked as a jazz
musician and an arranger for
Italian radio and television, as
well as ghost-writing for cinema.
His first big-screen success in
his own right came in 1961, when
he composed the score for Lucian
Salce’s Il federale;
Morricone and Salce went on to
work together on films including
Crazy Desire (1962), El Greco
(1963), and How I Learned to Love
Women (1966) as well as on
several projects for the theatre.
It is our
sad duty to record the deaths of
two more former members of the
Robert Farnon Society, both of
which have occurred during the
last few months.
John White
was a regular attendee at RFS and
then LLMMG meetings. By
profession a Group Manager for
London Underground, latterly at
Kings Cross Station, John passed
away at West Middlesex Hospital
in December 2019, having
unfortunately suffered two
strokes. He was a great devotee
of Frank Sinatra and possessed a
huge collection of recordings of
the latter. He would be seen
taking copious notes throughout
our meetings and was always on
the lookout for new CDs that
interested him.
Ralph
Thompson will be
remembered by many for his video
recordings of RFS meetings,
particularly those which had
taken place on special occasions.
A civil engineer in professional
life, Ralph had a number of
interests, including photography
and videography, cycling and old
London buses, in addition to
Light Music and record
collecting. Regrettably, he had
suffered kidney failure towards
the end of 2019 and died during
February of this year.
Another of our
supporters, Peter Luck, was a
friend of both John and Ralph,
and we are obliged to Peter for
providing this information.
Tony Clayden
June 2020
Vera Lynn
[1917-2020]
The cover of Radio
Pictorial - August 1938
One of the most
highly regarded figures in the
world of entertainment during
World War II - and for many years
thereafter – has finally
left us after an amazingly long
life of 103 years.
Dame Vera, the
Forces’ Sweetheart, captured
the hearts and minds of our
nation, and her voice was
regularly heard on radio
broadcasts almost up until the
present day.
June 2020
Obituary :
Jim Palm
It is with regret
that we record the death of
former Robert Farnon Society
member Jim Palm, on April 6th.
Many LLMMG
supporters may remember Jim, who,
back in the 90s, used to attend
our London meetings. For several
years he assisted David Ades with
the editing of Journal Into
Melody, to which he was also a
regular contributor.
He hailed from
Edgware, Middlesex [on the NW
periphery of London] and in
professional life worked for the
BBC in the latter’s
gramophone library.
Upon his
retirement from the Corporation,
he moved to Salisbury, where he
amassed his own sizeable
collection of recorded music,
much of it comprising discs from
the libraries of publishers such
as Chappells and Boosey &
Hawkes.
Jim had an
encyclopaedic knowledge of Light
Music, which was put to good use
in the many articles he wrote for
JIM and also for newspapers and
periodicals in his locality.
Tony Clayden
June 2020
June 2020
Award
Winning singer Robert Habermann
sings daily on Facebook at 6.05pm
To chase the Covid
Virus Blues away Award Winning
singer Robert Habermann is
singing 'live' everyday, one
popular song from The Great
American Songbook on Facebook at
6.05pm. So far he has sung over
100 songs on Facebook since the
start of the lockdown!
Thanks to the
wonderful world of technology,
Robert is accompanied by big
bands / orchestras, using the
original arrangements and also
introduces each song.
Songs include: You Make Me
Feel So Young, That Old
Black Magic, Summer Wind,
I’ll Be Seeing You, Close To
You, I Won’t Dance,
Unforgettable, All Of Me, Magic
Moments as well as current
hits, Skyfall, She Bangs
etc.
Tune into Facebook everyday
at 6.05pm under Robert Habermann, and you will
hear one of your favourite songs
from The Great American Songbook
to take your mind off this
unprecedented time by one of the
country’s most popular
singers
May 2020
"Heather
on the Pampas"
As the Aspidistra
Drawing Room Orchestra's Whit
Monday Concert had to be
cancelled due the COVID-19
problem, they have compensated by
producing a "lockdown"
video performance of"Heather
on the Pampas"by Sydney Del
Monte which you can view on the
Streaming section of our website here.
Also, Adam Bakker,
the organiser of the orchestra,
has sent us a podcast entitled "Beguine
and Bugatti"which you can find
within the same Streaming section
of our website here.
May 2020
Johnny
Gregory (1924 – 2020)
It is with regret
that we record the death of the
conductor, composer and arranger
Johnny Gregory, who died at his
home in Gerrards Cross,
Buckinghamshire on April 23rd
2020, about six months short of
his 96th birthday.
During his long
career, he wrote the scores for
fourteen films, (the last in
2000) and TV shows, and was
principal conductor of the BBC
Radio Orchestra between 1973 to
1974.
He made numerous
recordings, both under his own
name and (possibly more famously)
as Chaquito.
Gregory used a
number of other pseudonyms and
his orchestra often appeared
under the name of The
Cascading Strings.
A comprehensive
article about his life and work
is in preparation and will be
published on the LLMMG website in
due course.
We were very sorry
to be unable to present our May
Meeting due to the ongoing
COVID-19 problems. We trust that
you and yours are all well and
are staying safe. It is hoped
that we will be able to go ahead
with our planned October meeting
and will keep you informed as
soon as we have any further
details.
In the meantime,
we have added a new
section to the website
where you can listen to past
programmes of Light Music
courtesy of our member David
Corbett whose 'Light Programme'
is streamed over the web on
Sundays.
This section will
be updated and expanded to
include other presentations over
the coming months, including some
programmes specially created for
London Light Music Online.
The Oscar-winning
Italian composer, who wrote over
400 film scores and around 100
concert works, has died in Rome
aged 91.
