It was a warm summer evening with a good number of attendees in the audience for our evening concert performed by Elizabeth Harrrison. She began by introducing herself as a farmer, a driver of big machines and goods vehicles. Elizabeth’s boyfriend, also a farmer but their two farms were she said, 26 miles apart. Elizabeth made an appeal to the audience, she was a collector of tractors, at one time she had 13 but presently only 8, she did however want to find a Massey Ferguson 35, 3 cylinder tractor, and appealed to anyone in the audience who may have one for sale. There was much amusement but no offers. Elizabeth hadn’t had much luck with a shopping trip either, out for vacuum cleaner bags she returned home with a dog instead. The dog, a black and white border collie needed a new home, its owners were emigrating.
So the music started for an audience already amused. Unusually for an artiste, she performed facing us; throughout the evening she punctuated her performance with facial expressions that were themselves quite entertaining. Elizabeth is an accomplished entertainer with a performance repertoire that included something for everyone. Amongst the music she played were; themes from west end shows, strangers in the night, Choo Choo Samba, Too Beautiful To Last, A 1960s Selection including Three Steps To Heaven, I Only Want To Be With You, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, Its A Heartache, Georgie Girl. Marches- Out Of The Blue, Dancing Dustman. Viennese Waltz Selection including Over The Waves, Ciribiribin, Chrysanthemum Waltz, Nights of Gladness. Classical – Prelude In Classic Style, and House of dreams. We were also led in a sing song that featured well known cockney and wartime favourites, My old mans a dustman, Ain’t she sweet, Run rabbit run, when your smiling and Bring me sunshine.
Elizabeth’s instrument was a Roland ATELIER Combo AT-350C with Pedal board and a “Tower Organ in a box” module.
Posted in Concert Review Tagged with: BOKC, bokc.BOKC, brentwood, brentwood organ, Brentwood organ and keyboard, Brentwood Organ Keyboard club, concert, Concert 26th June 2017, Elizabeth Harrison
Nicholas Martin B.E.M
Monday 22nd May 2017, the lighter evenings were with us, and no need for heating. Our Artiste for the evening, Nicholas Martin, had travelled down from Leicester together with his father and son, both of whom helped Nicholas stage the evenings performance. We were first introduced to a sense of humour that carried on throughout the evening, ‘A lorry’, said Nicholas, ‘shed its load of onions on the motorway, police advised motorists to use the hard shoulder, to cry on’ we were reminded that it was ten years since he had last performed for us, with a wry smile, he suggested some were still sat in the same seats, his good humoured jokes brought ‘groans of laughter’ throughout the evening, and so to his music.
The performance opened to Hey Look Me Over, Nicholas’s signature tune. His music varied in styles, such as ‘The Blackpool Style’ and the way it was performed, including ‘cascading or water falling keyboards’, which to my uneducated eye was full of impressive movement. There were many other formats. Music performed included classical, hymns, jazz, film, waltzes, and Susa marches and of naturally Blackpool tower music. With his instrument he emulated single organs to full orchestras. In places the music was delicate and silky smooth, elsewhere full on and commanding. An accomplished performance with music to suit everyone. The variety of the performance attracted much applause and Nicholas was recalled for an encore.
Very kindly Nicholas provided me with a list detailing many of pieces that he played during the evening.
1st Half:
Sig Tune: Hey Look Me Over
Marches: Vienna Forever / Stars & Stripes Forever / The Thunderer
Classical Waltzes: Love theme from Romeo & Juliet / The Ashokan Farewell / Oh Mia Babbino Cara
Contrasts: Skaters Waltz / Eleanora / Intermezzo from: Cavalleria Rusticana
“Les Miserables” Medley: Master of the House / Bring Him Home / Do You Hear the People Sing? / I Dreamed a Dream
Music from Nick’s Latest CD: Take Me Home, Country Roads / Music, Music, Music / Zip a Dee-Doo-Dah / No Matter What / Peanut Polka / I Vow to Thee My Country / Bluebell Polka / Clarinet Polka / 12th St. Rag
2nd Half:
Latin American Medley: Brazil / Cumana / Enjoy Yourself / Maria Elena / Till / Jealousy / Sway / The Girl from Ipanema / Tico-Tico
You Raise Me Up / Amazing Grace
Showtime Medley: Mamma Mia / Shall We Dance? / March of the Siamese Children/ I Won’t Send Roses / Gigi / Get Me to the Kirk on Time / I Could Have Danced All Night / All I Ask of You / Willkomen / Cabaret / This Nearly Was Mine / Happy Talk / Hello Dolly / Music of the Night / Be A Clown / No Business Like Showbusiness
Frank Sinatra Remembered: New York, New York / All the Way / Fly Me To the Moon / My Way
Decades of Melody: A Walk in the Black Forest / Lady of Spain / Mack the Knife / It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie / Always / All My Loving / Can’t Buy Me Love / Yesterday / Around the World / Fascination / For All We Know / Lullaby of Birdland / Georgia / Muskrat Ramble / Rosalie / Anything Goes / Getting Sentimental Over You / Sunny Side of the Street / When Somebody Thinks You’re Wonderful / Opus One / Pennsylvania 65000 / Little Brown Jug / In the Mood.
Tiger Rag / Widor’s Toccata
Some wondered why Nicholas had been awarded the BEM by the queen. The honour was in recognition for work done by Nicholas in forming the children’s autism charity, ‘Miracles to believe in’. The charity has a website at the following address. http://www.miraclestobelievein.moonfruit.com/ At the end of the concert provision was made to accept donations to it. I received the following written comment from Nicholas, “I was delighted we raised £55.12 for our “Miracles to believe in” charity at the close of the concert. Please put a thank you in your newsletter for me regarding that.”
Nicholas instrument, a Technics GA3 organ, With believed a Roland Fantom XR module for the Theatre Organ sounds
Posted in Concert Review Tagged with: BOKC, brentwood organ, Brentwood organ and keyboard, miaclestobelievein, miracles to believe, mountnessing, Nicholas Martin, Nicholas Martin B.E.M, Organ
Paul Roberts
Monday 24th April 2017, into spring now but you wouldn’t think so with a sudden cold spell bringing arctic air down to Mountnessing? Our artiste for the evening was Paul Roberts he had travelled from Manchester to be with us that day having prior to that, been in Fort William. Paul introduced himself and told us of his many travels and detail of some of the venues at which he had performed around the globe. He proposed a theme for the start of the evening, that of travel. We began with a medley from New York from the 1920’s by the composer Walter Donaldson, amongst the music played we heard Making Whoopee. We next moved to Scotland for a selection including, The Bonnie Banks, Scotland the Brave and the Sky Boat song.
Paul made a point of explaining that all music we would hear from him that evening was live with no recorded or other backing, his instrument was a thirty year old Yamaha Electone HS-8 and perhaps did not have such a facility? His music next took a look at ‘time’ and with an irony we listened to ‘When I’m sixty-four’. We progressed to an Indian theme and listened to ‘Moonlight on the Ganges’ and ‘Hindu Stan’. In the second half of the evening amongst the music was; ‘The lady and the tramp,’ ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’, ‘His making eyes at me’ ‘If you knew Suzy’ and Then a dramatic change to a rendition of a Classical piece Opus 59 a chaconne by Henri Roubier. Throughout the evening the music was interspersed with relevant commentary and humour, confusion over Brentwood and Brentford caused not a little teasing between Paul and the audience, he quickly recovered and we all laughed with him. Back to music which included a move to the moon! ‘Fly me to the moon’ ‘Paper Moon’ and Moon River’ among other moon related tunes. Our last venue was Mexico for the ‘Mexican Hat Dance’ and ‘tequila’. ‘Somewhere over the rainbow’ and ‘Life is a Cabaret’ brought the evening to its initial end. Paul was of course, called back for an encore which included ‘Blaze Away’ and then a tune that took me back to my youth as a member of the ABC minors , only known to me as just that ‘ The ABC minors song’ sung by hundreds of kids sat in rows at the ABC cinema Ilford on a Saturday morning. We finished with ‘Where’s That Tiger’ to great applause.
Comment.
Paul’s stile of playing, some could use the word ‘Marmite’ and if you are not familiar with the term, people absolutely love Marmite or they are not so keen, it’s just a matter of taste. His music was bright and bubbly, he is a true Artiste, his stile and instrument produce the music that many would consider to be associated with traditional theatre organ music, for the purist ‘Marmite’ lovers superb, but for those who have got used to the additional instrument mimicking abilities of recent electronic organs, they may have missed the greater variety by those rendered orchestral instruments. A final comment about the evening of music brought to us by Paul, there was not a note of music in front of him it all came from his memory
Pauls Yamaha Electone HS-8
Posted in Concert Review
The first hint of spring, the clocks had gone forward; we welcomed British Summer Time and Ryan Edwards who had travelled to us from Chester. Those of us who arrived a little early did so whilst there was still some daylight in the sky. Ryan began his performance with a spirited rendition of the Light Cavalry Overture by Franz Von Suppe, followed by, ‘I wanna be like you’ from the jungle book. During the evening between pieces he explained why he had chosen each item of music and there would be a little story often with humour. Amongst the varied program were; Bring him home, Morning in Cornwall, music from Cats, ‘Goodbye to love’ by the Carpenters, which included of course its faithfully rendered famous guitar solo. There were two pieces from Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, one of which was ‘Portsmouth’. Other varied genres featured a performance of Michel Flatley’s ‘Gypsy’ and another ‘River Dance’ favourite, ‘Lord of the dance’. ‘Nice work if you can get it’, ‘Cocamba’. A piece with fast and complicated looking footwork and Elgar’s ninth Enigma Variation, ‘Nimrod’.
All too soon we reached the encore which of course was called for after an accomplished evening’s entertainment, ‘Nessun Dorma’ brought the performance to a close. There had been many other and varied items in Ryan’s program the detail of which I have missed but his music spanned some classical and the last 60 years (by my reckoning) and had the audience swaying, singing, and toe tapping throughout.
The instrument played by Ryan was a Yamaha Electone EL-900. During the evening he explained that a near catastrophe occurred in the last few days whilst transporting it. The keyboard fell off its trolley and broke its right side panel. Fortunately a family member repaired it in time for the BOKC performance.
Posted in Concert Review Tagged with: BOKC, Ryan Edwards
27th February 2017, Another cold evening for a concert but we were treated to a comprehensive evening of great musical variety at the hands of John Cooper, hands which he was rubbing together to warm his fingers, two of the heaters in the hall were out of order. At least by the forthcoming March concert we should be moving into spring and perhaps warmer weather? John punctuated his music with a good sense of humour between pieces. As he started to play he slipped off his shoes to operate the pedals in his socks. He didn’t want to scratch the pedals… Whilst playing, John’s father maintained a projected video relevant to the music as an inset on the screened images of keyboard and pedals.
The evening opened with music in the stile of James last, the Elizabethan serenade, we heard music from Les Misérables, a variety from Disney, Hans Zimmer’s pirates of the Caribbean. Further pieces included, The Rose, Hero, Unforgettable, Bring him home, Conquest of Paradise, Palladio, and a very soulful rendition of ‘Morning in Cornwall’. Eventually the concert reached the end of the evening and John returned to play ‘Time to say goodbye’ as his encore.
The instrument John brought with him was a Yamaha Stagea ELS-02C. Apparently these are very rare in the UK perhaps only two models including John’s. It seems one can be purchased here for £25,000 or as John did, journey to Japan and bring your own back for about £6,000 or was it £8000? Well out of interest I checked and today you can buy one direct in Japan for 1,036,800 Japanese Yen or in good old GBP £7,862.96p
John’s Yamaha Stagea ELS-02C
Posted in Concert Review Tagged with: A concert - The Organist Entertains, BOKC, brentwood, concert, john cooper
Chris Jones
Perhaps it was the recent icy roads and fogy evenings or the particularly chilly night of the 23rd Jan, maybe the road closures after an explosion that evening, which took out the building front of flats in Ardleigh Green Romford. Something brought about an unusually low turnout for the music of Chris Jones.
Standing under a heater in the hall and rubbing his hands together he joked about how cold the hall was, it did though fortunately warm up during the evening.
As we perhaps expected, Chris produced a concert that provided music from many genre’s, from the classics of Gustav Mahler to Boyzone, TV themes including sleepy shores and Poirot. A comprehensive evening’s entertainment which even had his audience singing along with him.
The instrument that Chris brought with him had been adapted and reengineered by Chris to make it slightly more portable, he made a point of telling us that the equipment was 25 years old yet apparently, just as good as new.
Whilst I can appreciate good music my present knowledge of these keyboard instruments is limited and I have had to ask for details. So thanks to Dave for the following.
Chris had a self built 3 manual and pedal organ made from a Yamaha US-1 (dating back to 1990), a Technics KN7000 keyboard and a variety of Yamaha, Korg and Roland sound expanders including the Fantom XR which was used to provide some very good Theatre Organ sounds.
Chris’s Keyboard!
Posted in Concert Review
