We pride ourselves on playing a diverse repertoire of music from different cultural styles, genres and traditions. Our selection for this term includes music from Britain, Ukraine, Cuba, Mexico and South Africa, and includes music by black jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahaim and two women composers, Amanda Aldridge and Mary Ann Pownall (who was born in Hackney). Find out more from these notes by our Musical Director, Chris Harrison.
LA FERIA DE LAS FLORES (The Festival of the Flowers)
A song from the repertoire of the Mexican band Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan, composed by Chucho Monge (1910-1964). Mariachi is a distinct type of Mexican folk music that features brass and string instruments.
LAZY DANCE
A light orchestral piece composed in 1913 under the pseudonym of Montagu Ring, by Amanda Aldridge (1866-1956), a British composer of mixed heritage (her father was the distinguished black actor Ira Aldridge) whose compositions include love songs, suites, sambas and orchestral pieces. Lazy Dance (La Paresseuse) was published in 1913 by Chappell & Co Ltd, London & New York, as No 679 in their Orchestral Journal series.
A NIGHT AT THE EMPIRE
An arrangement by HCO player Roger Cawkwell of five songs that might have been sung at Hackney Empire during its heyday as a music hall venue. They are:
Burlington Bertie From Bow
Let’s All Go Down The Strand
Nellie Dean
Maybe It’s Because I’m A Londoner
Wot Cher
POCO ADAGIO (from Sonata in A minor)
This is an arrangement of the slow movement of a piano sonata in A minor by Mykola Lysenko (1842-1912), a Ukrainian composer, pianist, conductor and ethnomusicologist. Much of his work blends characteristics from traditional Ukrainian music and Western classical music. He is acknowledged as the founding father of Ukrainian music, and during his lifetime he was at the centre of Ukrainian cultural and musical life in Kyiv.
SOWETO (is where it’s at)
A track from the album African Herbs by the South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim. The music celebrates the people of Soweto, an area of Johannesburg which was the scene of a student uprising in 1976 that was violently suppressed. Abdullah Ibrahim (born Adolph Johannes Brand and formerly known as Dollar Brand) is the leading figure in a genre known as ‘Cape Jazz’ and his composition Mannenberg became an anthem of the struggle against apartheid.
TEA FOR TWO is celebrating its centenary, as a song from the Broadway show No No Nanette, which opened on September 16, 1925. The song has long been ranked among the most recorded popular songs of all time. In the show, it is a duet between Tom, who wants to marry straight away, and Nanette, who wants to wait. Our arrangement is based on one performed by the Sweets Belgravia Band.
THREE SONGS by MARY ANN POWNALL (1751-1796)
Mary Ann Pownall was born Mary Matthews in Hoxton and baptized in Shoreditch church. She made her debut on stage as a singer aged about 15 and performed as an actor and singer at Drury Lane and Covent Garden with Garrick and Sheridan. She was also a regular performer at Vauxhall Gardens from 1777 to 1786. She subsequently moved to USA and had a successful career, performing in Philadelphia and New York but died during a yellow fever epidemic in 1796.
The three songs are
Lavinia
The Labyrinth Of Love
The Primrose Girl
TIEN MI MI
A Chinese song made famous by the Taiwanese singer, Teresa Teng, based on the Indonesian folk song Dayung Sampan, which originated among the Peranakan community in Benteng, western Java.
TWO CUBAN CONTRADANZAS – La Nina Bonita and Irenita
These are arrangements of two tunes by Manuel Saumell Robredo (1817-1870) who is considered one of the most important figures in the development of Cuban music. He spent most of his life working as a freelance musician across many musical genres. Contradanzas were composed in two parts, a prima in a classical style followed by a segunda in a folk style.
WARUM (also known by its French title, Pourquoi) is a type of dance known as a ronde from a collection of tunes entitled DANSERYE, published in 1551, which is an important source of dance music of the period, featuring rondes, basse danses, pavanes, galliards, allemandes, etc. The compiler, Tielman Susato (c1510/15- after 1580) was a prolific composer and arranger, as well as publishing music from his press in Antwerp, known as ‘At the sign of the Crumhorn’.
FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS
We are exploring the possibility of combining vocal and instrumental music by working with Hackney Voices, and we will be holding a joint session with tem on November 13 to explore two songs from their repertoire - Gaudete and Patapan.
Our annual Christmas Concert, to be held this year on December 11, will feature some seasonal items in addition to a selection from the above repertoire.
