Talk Subjects
Chris Helme
Carlos Pellicer is a teacher, composer and conductor, and although he regularly writes for different orchestral formations, film music, etc., his main task is the composition of symphonic music for band.
He has been the principal conductor of the Sociedad Unión Musical de Cañada, the Agrupació Musical de Villalonga, and currently of the Unió Musical de Llutxent (Spain). He has also performed as a guest conductor in different bands in the Comunidad Valenciana, the rest of the Spanish State, as well as in other countries such as Poland, the United States or Italy.
On this week's show we are featuring his three movement work Menu 1) L'Aperitif 2) La Specialiti du Chef 3) American Pie - Le Grand Finale. For further information about Carlos Pellicer please have a look at his website http://carlospellicer.es/about/#ancla1
Métallon is not just a CD, it is the consolidation of an ambitious project that was born from the restlessness of a few professional musicians and their director, Enrique Alborch Tarraso. In the summer of 2014, they decided to start a stable and outside of the academic field an unusual formation in Spain: a Brass Band.
The band has represented a new and high-quality formation in the Valencian and national musical scene.
The band will be opening this week's show and we will be hearing from again in future shows.
Sorry, no new concert today the conductor is ill...Normal service will resume soon...
Sorry, no new concert today the conductor is ill...Normal service will resume soon...
The Virtuosi Brass Band of Great Britain produced nine LP (long playing) records during the 1970s. The band was made up of 28 of the best players in UK brass bands at the time. These days the LPs can still be found now and then on internet auction websites and well worth buying. They are also on CD and many of these can be found on the same websites. They are also available on CD at Kirklees Music, Bailiff Bridge, Brighouse - http://kirkleesmusic.co.uk/index_files/Recordings3.htm - for quality and nostalgia they are worth adding to your CD collection as I have done.
We are featuring two tracks on the first half of this week's this programme which is music for St Georges Day.
To find out more about this band please check out these three links to read the whole fascinating story about this special band.
Part 1. https://www.4barsrest.com/articles/2004/art384.asp
Fred Hartley (1905–1980) was a Scottish pianist, conductor and composer of light music.
He born in Dundee in 1905 and attended Harris Academy and attained a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. He made his first public broadcast as a solo pianist in 1925 and in 1931 went on to form his "Novelty Quintet", which regularly made broadcasts on the BBC. In 1946, he was made Head of BBC Light Music.
He composed mainly in the light music genre and his compositions were often featured on the BBC Light Programme. In addition to "Rouge et Noir", compositions for orchestra include the "Scherzetto for Children", "The Hampden Roar", "Alpine Festival", "The Ball at Aberfeldy", "Whispering Breeze", "Hampden Road March" and "A Dream of Hawaii".
He published several of his piano works under the name Iris Taylor: "Dreamy Afternoon", "Cuckoo in Love", "Twentieth Century Nocturne" and "Starry Night".
Hampden Roar is on this week's show played by the Scottish CWS Band in 1969.
Sir Hugh Stevenson Roberton (23 February 1874 – 7 October 1952) was a Scottish composer and Britain's leading choral-master.
He was born in Glasgow, where, in 1906, he founded the Glasgow Orpheus Choir. For five years before that it was the Toynbee Musical Association. A perfectionist, he expected the highest standards of performance from its members. Its voice was a choir voice, its individual voices not tolerated. He set new standards in choral technique and interpretation. For almost fifty years, until it disbanded in 1951 on the retirement of its founder, the Glasgow Orpheus Choir had no equal in Britain and toured widely enjoying world acclaim. Their repertoire included many Scottish folk songs arranged for choral performance, and Paraphrases, as well as Italian madrigals, English motets and the music of the Russian Orthodox Church. The choir also performed the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Felix Mendelssohn, Peter Cornelius, Johannes Brahms and others.
He wrote the choral work All in the April Evening (words by Katharine Tynan) and the popular songs Westering Home and Mairi's Wedding. He wrote alternative lyrics for Dashing White Sergeant.
Roberton was knighted in the 1931 New Year's Honours. He was a pacifist and member of the Peace Pledge Union. For this reason, both he and the Glasgow Orpheus Choir were banned by the BBC from broadcasting during the Second World War.
The Australian politician and diplomat Hugh Roberton was his son.
On this week's show we are featuring All in the April Evening which has beeen a brass band favourite for many years.
José Juventino Policarpo Rosas Cadenas (25 January 1868 – 9 July 1894) was a Mexican composer and violinist.
Rosas was born in Santa Cruz, Guanajuato, later renamed Santa Cruz de Galeana, Guanajuato, and still later into Santa Cruz de Juventino Rosas. Rosas began his musical career as a street musician, playing with dance music bands in Mexico City. In 1884-85 and 1888 he enrolled into the conservatory, both times leaving it without taking any examination.
Most of Rosas's compositions — among them "Sobre las Olas" ("Over the Waves") — were issued by Wagner y Levien and Nagel Sucesores in Mexico City.
In the late 1880s, Rosas is reported to have been a member of a military band, and in 1891 he worked in Michoacán. In 1892–93 Rosas lived near Monterrey before joining an orchestra in 1893 for a tour through the USA. During this tour, the group performed at the World Columbian Exposition World's Fair in Chicago, Illinois.
In 1894, Rosas went for a several-month tour to Cuba with an Italian Mexican ensemble, where he came down with major health problems, having to stay behind in Surgidero de Batabanó. As a result of spinal myelitis, he died there at the age of 26. Fifteen years later, in 1909, his remains were brought back to Mexico.
Rosas is one of the best-known Mexican composers of salon music, as well as the one with the highest number of editions abroad and of sound recordings, the first of them released in 1898. Rosas's best-known work is "Sobre las Olas" or "Over the Waves". It was first published in Mexico in 1888. It remains popular as a classic waltz, and has also found its way into New Orleans Jazz, Bluegrass Music, Country and Western music and Tejano music. In the United States "Sobre las Olas" has a cultural association with funfairs, ice skating, circuses, and trapeze artists, as it was one of the tunes available for Wurlitzer's popular line of fairground organs. The music was used for the tune "The Loveliest Night of the Year", which was sung by Ann Blyth in MGM's film The Great Caruso. It remains still popular with country and old-time fiddlers in the United States.
The 1950 film Over the Waves was based on his life.
We are featuring Rosas's "Sobre Las Olas" on this week's show. There will be many listeners who will remember playing this during the 1950s.60s, and into the 1970s just as I did on many park engagment concert programmes.
Talks Available
All the presentations are timed to last up to an hour except where shown - questions are gladly taken after the presentation. All have been presented to male, female and mixed audiences of varying age groups.
-
A Postcard from the Past
The Sunny Vale Pleasure Gardens, Halifax - Yorkshire’s Alton Towers of the…
-
All in a Days Work
Reminiscences from 30 years in the Police Service – (humorous lecture presentation)…
-
Legends from the world of Brass Bands
(Info-tainment – digital slides & music) – 1 hour presentation.
-
A Week in May
A story based on the Murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish (of the…
-
Memories of Christmas Past
-
The Road to Publication
In 1979 I was asked to assist in presenting a series of…
-
Holiday Memories from the Past
-
How we used to live
We have all seen and experienced changes in our lives. Bring back…
-
Other Folks Rubbish (Not suited to a Zoom presentation)
With a local history theme… – (thought provoking humorous lecture presentation) –…
-
So you want to be a Pirate ? - The life of a Pirate was not all that it seemed
-
Superstitions, New Year Resolutions and the Origins of St Valentine's Day
-
Brighouse at Work
-
Sorry but I am not able to accept any more face to face talk bookings at the present time ONLY ZOOM TALKS
