Performing Arts in Surrey, Sussex & Kent

Archive for the ‘show’ Category

Harry Leader: 1906-1987

“So, Mister Leader, play your lilting melodies . . . Music Maestro Please!” 

So went the words to the song that bandleader Harry Leader used as his signature tune, but the apparent lyrical reference to his name was quite coincidental. It was an American song composed in 1938 by Herb Magidson and Allie Wrubel and the moment it became popular over here it was too good for Harry to ignore. But that was many years after he had created his professional name, for Harry Leader was not the name he began life with.

His Russian father, Wolf Lebys, was a trumpeter in the Army of the Tsar and had studied music at St. Petersburg Conservatoire. The 1905 revolution prompted the family to immigrate to Britain and, settling in Poplar in London’s East End, Harry was born there in January 1906 and named George Henry Lebys. There was some pressure on the young lad to become a musician just like his dad but, not keen on playing the trumpet, he initially took violin lessons.

At 14 he bought an alto saxophone and taught himself to play by listening to the records of American clarinettists Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman – and so began his lifetime relationship with that instrument.

 Read more in March/April issue of Words & Music Magazine

Ann Widdecombe to star at The Orchard, Dartford

It’s difficult not to be inspired By Ann Widdecombe, whose career spans Maidstone and Weald MP, novelist, dancer and now pantomime star.

Having turned down the opportunity to star in the West-End Musical Grease, “because of the Strictly tour – they  clashed”, Ann is preparing for her stage-debut opposite Craig Revel Horwood in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs this Christmas at The Orchard, Dartford.

Read more in Nov/December Words and Music Magazine!

Peter Katin

Born in London, 1930, to a family originally from northern Europe, as a child of four Peter’s  musical ability was phenomenal.  At twelve he was enrolled in the senior department of the RAM (minimum age for entry, sixteen.)   At eighteen  he was headlining at the Wigmore Hall. The first British artist to visit Russia post-WW2, he still declares his debt to his early mentors, Clifford Curzon, Dame Myra Hess and the Chilean pianist/conductor Claudio Arrau.  He rapidly became known as an interpreter of the ‘big’ works of the Romantics, particularly Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov, and it was a performance of the latter’s very complicated Third Piano Concerto which really established him as the leader in this field.The University of Surrey organises a wide variety of events through it’s Arts and Music departments, many of them with free admission.

Surrey Opera present The Bartered Bride at The Minack

Surrey Opera’s seventh visit to the Minack in Cornwall with The Bartered Bride was undoubtedly our wettest. I remember crowding into the orchestra tent during the finale of Carmen (2000) watching Carmen and Don Jose drown, only for the rain to stop for the curtain call.

On the Monday night this year, we opened in rain, closed in rain, and performed whilst getting steadily soggy. At least some of the chorus could tumble-dry parts of their costume during the interval. Eagle-eyed observers of the set might have noticed that one of the `May-poles` was shortened because the cardboard collapsed. Company spirit was, of course, excellent, with umbrellas provided for some of those required to lie on stage during most of Act Two.

Burlesque is making a return!

The art of Burlesque

A contradiction in terms? Is there any art in burlesque? Some say Yes. Others – probably the majority – vehemently deny it. Presumably the early perpetrators of this unique form of entertainment definitely considered it art, for burlesque has severely high-flown origins. Its name, for one. Originating in Spain, burla travelled to Italy and became burlesco and thence to France for the word we know. Its literal translation is ‘to send up’. Wasn’t burlesque American in origin, a product of the ‘silent’ era of Fatty Arbuckle, the early Chaplin, Buster Keaton and the Keystone Cops, glamour courtesy of Mabel Normand? In 1954 Phil Silvers starred as the comic in a film about the subject, Top Banana  Read the rest of this entry »

From left to right: Simon Thorpe - baritone as John the Butcher; Celeste Lazerenko - soprano as Mary; Daniel Norman - Tenor as Hugh; Nicholas Jenkins - Conductor

New Sussex Opera will be presenting new production of Vaughan Williams’ romantic ballad opera

New Sussex Opera presents Vaughan Williams’ first completed opera Hugh the Drover, liams. Set in the Cotswolds in 1812, during the Napoleonic Wars, the plot centres around a prize-fight to win the hand of the beautiful Mary, a fight which divides a tightly-knit community. Read the rest of this entry »

The new Performing Arts Centre

Schools feel Performing Arts Centre is good investment

A brand new Performing arts centre has just been completed at Sevenoaks School and was opened at an inaugural concert on Tuesday 27th April by Professor Barry Ife, CBE, Principal of London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Former school pupil Emma Johnson, MBE and student performers provided an evening of superb entertainment to an audience of some 400. Known as the Pamoja Hall this beautiful building seating 400 together with a new Steinway `D` , concert grand, a recital room, a drama studio to seat 100, a drum room and recording studio, a music room, a band room, seventeen individual sound-proofed teaching rooms and a foyer, make up the school’s new performing arts centre. Read the rest of this entry »

New Mexican Tenor

Roberto Ortiz

Wonderful recital by Roberto Ortiz, described by some as the new Domingo, at Eastbourne’s Winter Gardens. He recently sang with Kiri Te Kanawa at the German Embassy. A real star in the making.

29th June 2010, The Gold Room, The Winter Gardens, Eastbourne. Roberto Ortiz (tenor) and Eva Thyri Hilmarsdottir (piano) (Friends of ther Towner).

The young Mexican tenor Roberto Ortiz has been hailed as the ‘New Domingo’. He has a way to go before equalling the status of his senior compatriot, Placido Domingo, surely one of the all-time great singers of the world who after an outstanding career as a world-class tenor has just made his debut as a baritone, not forgetting his accomplishments as a conductor.  Read the rest of this entry »