Showing posts with label musicals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label musicals. Show all posts

Sunday 15 December 2013

My Favourite Musicals


 
I went to see The Lion King musical  by Elton John & Tim Rice) recently, which was very good and great effects and all.  I was asked what my favourite ever musical is. I answered Westside Story (composed by Leonard Bernstein) which I do love for its energy and songs. But later I thought my top musical may be Cabaret (composed by John Kander)  I saw the film of the Cabaret musical in 1972.


I grew up playing musicals on piano – from The Mikado, South Pacific to the Sound of Music – which I loved to sing.  Most of these musicals were composed by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. 
Gilbert and Sullivan wrote some of the best musicals which were great fun to play and which I saw on stage several times. 
In more recent times the biggest stage musicals have been composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and I saw The Phantom of the Opera in Edinburgh’s playhouse which was a top rate musical with wonderful songs.  


Leonard Bernstein was an American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim. According to The New York Times, he was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history."
Richard Rodgers was an American composer of music for more than 900 songs and for 43 Broadway musicals. He is best known for his songwriting partnerships with the lyricists Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II. His compositions have had a significant impact on popular music down to the present day, and have an enduring broad appeal. Rodgers was the first person to win the top show business awards in television, recording, movies and Broadway—an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony – an EGOT.
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900). The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado are among the best known.  Gilbert, who wrote the words, created fanciful "topsy-turvy" worlds for these operas where each absurdity is taken to its logical conclusion—fairies rub elbows with British lords, flirting is a capital offence, gondoliers ascend to the monarchy, and pirates turn out to be noblemen who have gone wrong. Sullivan, six years Gilbert's junior, composed the music, contributing memorable melodies that could convey both humour and pathos. 

Andrew Lloyd Webber, is a British composer and impresario of musical theatre.  Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals and he has won 7 Tony Awards, 3 Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, 14 Ivor Novello Awards, 7 Olivier Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2006. Several of his songs have been widely recorded and were hits outside of their parent musicals, notably "The Music of the Night" from The Phantom of the Opera, "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar, "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" and "You Must Love Me" from Evita, "Any Dream Will Do" from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and "Memory" from Cats

Monday 26 November 2012

Wasted Love


Award winning Fringe musical for Best Lyrics – Wasted Love was written by the Kielty brothers John and Gerry. The show was performed at the Actors church Covent garden on November 25th 2012.

The Kieltys were previously known as The Martians, and they used to busk on Edinburgh High street during the festival and perform their comedy routines with Gerry distinctive high voice.  They then won the Cameron Mackintosh prize for best new musical in 2006 for the musical The Sundowe which was performed at Eden Court theatre in Inverness..


John Kielty is an actor and writer and he has performed in shows at the Lyceum theatre Edinburgh.

John Kielty

Martians Edinburgh high street

Monday 24 September 2012

Edinburgh Festival 2012

It has been a strange Edinburgh festival this year. I’ve been so busy I’ve felt distracted/ detached from it all somewhat and I have less energy. I spend most of my time here at the Edinburgh Book Festival, more to follow. The next part of the saga that is ‘magical mystery tour’ of the Edinburgh trams is that the buses now detour to avoid the digging at Haymarket. The tram lines were started in 2008? and it is now years later and they are costing millions more that expected and are an embarrassment for the city. Did the people of the city get a say over it?  I think not.

 Everyone needs to be an artist in the babble of shows and posters that is the EIF and Fringe. It used to be about amateur student shows. Now it has become slick with stylized big productions and most young people go to the comedy shows. I heard that the new Summerhall venue is about what the festival used to be before it all became corporate, comedy and rubbish. 

**My Theme this year was Love. Love knows our hearts desires, our mirrors. There are voices of hope in a world often torn asunder and we are full of wonder… surely?  Tolstoy wrote of reverence, humility and love and he felt that the narrative was outside his control. I promise myself I need to write more.  

Where do stories come from and why? 
Whatever else love is, it is always a mystery.

Fireworks end each night to mark the finale of the Edinburgh Tattoo. 


Thursday 9 August 2012

Edinburgh Festival Photos

 LEO performed by Tobias Wegner, directed by Daniel Briere won Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award
Neil Gaiman Edinburgh International Book Festival 2011
Mark Beaumont