From 2023: Here’s my favorite Hawaiian-born girl singer in her 1977 TV special being pulled from the sea by astonished islanders—mostly Filipino, look at them closely—to lead a rousing chorus, with hula gestures, in THE GREATEST SHOW TUNE ever written. You got that, my Geordie love? Or is that too “exotic”for you?
The centrepiece of our concert is Rachmaninov’s rarely heard First Symphony. Why it’s rarely heard is a mystery to me, I’d even say it’s the greatest of his three symphonies. It’s a work of tremendous emotional power and drama and I’m telling everyone I know about this because I want them to come and hear it. Sinfonia of London have recorded the Second Symphony and we’ve played quite a lot of Rachmaninov over the past few years, I feel like it’s become part of our DNA.
Kenneth Hesketh is a great friend of mine, we were at college together, and he’s the most marvellous composer. I love his music. PatterSongs, a short piece to open the concert, is taken from his opera The Overcoat and has all the qualities I associate with Ken’s music. It’s mercurial, dazzling, brilliantly orchestrated, quirky and the perfect way to open the concert.
The great cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason won the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition when he was 16 years old, playing Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto. We’re thrilled he’s invited us to play the Second Cello Concerto on this tour, it’s a real masterpiece, the kind of pure music that gets under your skin. Once you’ve heard it, it’s a difficult piece of music to leave.
This is an evening of really great music, some of which is rarely played, and it’s a real thrill for me to be performing it with Sinfonia of London.I hope to see you there.
Tue 13 Oct 2024 16:00 Bristol Beacon Bristol, UK Sinfonia of London Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello)
Kenneth Hesketh: PatterSongs
Dmitri Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No 2
Sergei Rachmaninov: Symphony No 1
___
Tue 15 Oct 2024 19:30 Barbican Hall London, UK Sinfonia of London Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello)
Kenneth Hesketh: PatterSongs
Dmitri Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No 2
Sergei Rachmaninov: Symphony No 1
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Fri 18 Oct 2024 19:30 The Glasshouse Gateshead, UK Sinfonia of London Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello)
Kenneth Hesketh: PatterSongs
Dmitri Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No 2
Sergei Rachmaninov: Symphony No 1
___
Sat 19 Oct 2024 19:30 Royal Concert Hall Nottingham, UK Sinfonia of London Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello)
And here starts John’s concert tour of his famous pop classics, in which he gets to butcher my dear old boss Mamoulian’s Okla-freakin-homa! all over again.
Prepare to be enchanted as John Wilson and Sinfonia of London bring the timeless music of Rodgers & Hammerstein to life in a spectacular concert featuring beloved songs from some of the greatest musicals of all time including South Pacific, The Sound of Music, Oklahoma! Carousel and The King and I. Audiences will be treated to classic hits such as ‘Oh What a Beautiful Morning’, ‘People Will Say We’re In Love’ ‘Some Enchanted Evening’, ‘Younger Than Springtime’ and more!!!
18 Jun 2025 18:15 Brighton Dome Concert Hall Brighton and Hove, UK Sinfonia of London Louise Dearman, Nathaniel Hackmann Scarlett Strallen (vocalists)
19 Jun 2024 18:30 Lighthouse, Poole’s Centre for the Arts Poole, UK Sinfonia of London Louise Dearman, Nathaniel Hackmann Scarlett Strallen (vocalists)
21 Jun 2025 19:00 Royal Concert Hall Nottingham, UK Sinfonia of London Louise Dearman, Nathaniel Hackmann Scarlett Strallen (vocalists)
22 Jun 2025 19:30 The Bridgewater Hall Manchester, UK Sinfonia of London Louise Dearman, Nathaniel Hackmann, Scarlett Strallen (vocalists)
23 Jun 2025 19:00 Bristol Beacon Bristol, UK Sinfonia of London Louise Dearman, Nathaniel Hackmann, Scarlett Strallen (vocalists)
24 Jun 2025 19:30 The Anvil Basingstoke, UK Sinfonia of London Louise Dearman, Nathaniel Hackmann, Scarlett Strallen (vocalists)
26 Jun 2025 19:30 The Royal Albert Hall London, UK Sinfonia of London Louise Dearman, Nathaniel Hackmann, Scarlett Strallen (vocalists)
27 Jun 2025 19:00 Symphony Hall Birmingham, UK Sinfonia of London Louise Dearman, Nathaniel Hackmann, Scarlett Strallen (vocalists)
28 Jun 2025 19:00 Royal Concert Hall Glasgow, UK Sinfonia of London Louise Dearman, Nathaniel Hackmann, Scarlett Strallen (vocalists)
29 Jun 2025 19:30 The Glasshouse International Centre for Music Gateshead, UK Sinfonia of London Louise Dearman, Nathaniel Hackmann, Scarlett Strallen (vocalists)
EXTRA! Courtesy of YT an entire episode of Groucho’s classic TV “game” show, You Bet Your Life from 5 December 1957, featuring American concert baritone and outspoken rock’n’roll hater, John Charles Thomas, plus the heroine of the most scandalous book in my mother’s forbidden library, The Big Love—the fetchingest teenager (15!) in Hollywood, Beverly Aadland! Just months before Errol Flynn swept her away! At 11:50 Beverly sings “All Shook Up” and Groucho dances a few steps solo, then with her, in a really sweet passage a deux.
Connection number one: The star of the classic TV show Frasier, Kelsey Grammer, starred in Man of La Mancha at the London Coliseum in 2019. His co-star in that show was popular British TV actor Nicholas Lyndhurst, who played his Sancho Panza and now plays his “old Oxford pal” on the new Frasier show. The Joe Darion-Dale Wasserman-Mitch Leigh stage musical was co-produced by venerable (and gorgeous then, gorgeous still and always) talent agent-turned-producer Michael Linnit, who gave me my first orgasm one July night in 1973 at the St Regis Hotel in New York City, New York.
Connection number two: Also in the cast of the Coliseum’s La Mancha was soprano Danielle de Niese. De Niese’s married to the chairman of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera. Just like late Met mezzo Maria Ewing who was also married to a bigwig (and not just any old bigwig but the hoity-toity SIR Peter Hall which made her a lady, Lady Hall), the ladies like John well enough. And he likes them well enough.
Oh, who am I kidding? Hold my jacket, Vinny. [more after dinner, making Romanian goulash…]
Okay, I’m back. The trick to making good Romanian goulash, by the way, is to let the carrots boil long enough to get soft as stew. Cheap paprika is fine to use but dump it in, it’s never strong enough for the recipe.
Now to fighting for the man I love. After satisfying myself thoroughly, body and soul, with that very lively fantasy (taking place—this is where it went in my head—on the Mean Streets of the Lower East Side—between Vinny the Sardine’s kid sister Teresa, a girl sporting a crucifix and a great right hook—and a bottle blonde puttana, calls herself Lolita) I need to point out John’s propensity for let’s say not being at one with his female singers.
I have here, case in point, a young one named Sierra Boggess in her rendering of that classic song of girl power we all sang while bounding youthfully down the street—from the BBC Proms, 2010: “I Have Confidence”. You stay and listen. I can’t even listen all the way to the end, John and his O just drown out pobrecita, who I have enough sympathy for already, as back in 2018 she had to play the fall guyin the BBC’s cockamamie plan to appear racially woke—while being able to stock their shows with free, unseasoned talent from the local inner city arts school (a very common tactic in the States) for that West Side Story debacle of theirs.
In fact, this subject is making me so mad I need to sweeten the moment—so I’ve decided to sic one of the girls on my darling… Which one will it be? Petula…? Dusty…? Okay, here’s a song by a particular girl singer I get a particular kick out of: side B of “To Sir, With Love”—Neil Diamond’s “The Boat That I Row” sung by Lulu! I’m singing this song dancing to your picture, mi amor.
Now, about the 2019 Cendrillon: At the intermission talk with Cendrillon‘s director Fiona Dunn, my beloved John Wilson, mezzo Kate Lindsey, and soprano Danielle de Niese, the topic of debate was, What should Prince Charming look like in the 21st century?
Says John to the lovelies pictured above: “I think having Prince Charming as Massenet stipulated, it fits beautifully within the whole kind of sonic picture of the whole thing. It’s not a piece that you could say fits on one musical plane, it’s got lots of colors. It’s one of the most colorful pieces he ever wrote… When I said I was doing this piece to people, they would say, Oh yeah, that’s a nice light sort of sweet little piece. It’s not a sweet little piece, it’s a big piece, there’s always another layer to get to and there’s always more detail to explore, always more depth every time. It’s not lightweight…”
EXTRA! The most John Wilsonish piece in Cendrillon.
“Marche des princesses” from Cendrillon, Act IV Jules Massenet, composer Academy of St Martin in the Fields Neville Marriner, conductor Capriccio, 1997
Of course there’s no “h” in the actual title but I’m putting it in anyway to alert singers to the long vowel because the money-grubbing whore who wrote the lyrics to this Broadway musical standard didn’t give two shits for singers.
Above: After some silliness, the boys deliver a splendid rendition of the Frederick Loewe standard, “They Call the Wind Mariah” from Paint Your Wagon (Broadway, 1951)
I, however, have a lot of affection and admiration for Berlin-born-and-trained composer Frederick Loewe, who wrote the most tuneful, singable melodies on Broadway, up there with Richard Rodgers and Jerome Kern. Loewe was right not to want to have anything to do with the big-screen disaster, Paint Your Wagon, which plowed on without him (Paramount, 1969), messing up Josh Logan, Paddy Chayefsky(!), Jean Seberg, Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood, et al, in its trail…
The only way to read the 1969 film (and I don’t recommend watching it for pleasure ever ever ever, not even for yummy Clint) is to look at it like a late-60s hippie festival, complete with trees, mud, and crazy sex. (You know, like Woodstock…) The absolutely unreal pluralism of the background characters—Jews, Italians, whites (but no blacks), Chinese dressed in brocade with their wives(!?) all living in this dirty mining camp (a dirty mining camp where men politely doff their hats to white women) peacefully together—is another hippie fantasy, with a dollop of Chayefsky the liberal (of Marty and Network fame) added.
The one good thing in this pile of offal is the song, “They Call the Wind Mariah”, sung incongruously by Harve Presnell; but beautifully and hauntingly here by, of all people, the Smothers Brothers, the shining jokester-balladeer heroes of my youth. (Adding to their luster: as wartime US Army brats, they spent part of their childhood in the Philippines.)
Here’s hoping you haven’t watched/heard Paint Your Wagon. If you have, and the Andre Previn interpolations made you (like me) sick*, here are two lovely selections from the pen of Frederick Loewe, rendered by my bonny John Wilson and his various orchestras:
February 14. Greetings of the day, my love. This is my gift to you this year: A sexy song by Erik Satie, plus a mashup of you conducting Vaughan Williams’s “Sea” Symphony in Birmingham with the classic print by Hokusai (1760-1849), “The Great Wave off Kanagawa”, which is actually getting some likes over at my DeviantArt gallery.
Above the mashup of Hosukai + John conducting Vaughan Williams’s “Sea” Symphony, find counter-tenor Yoshikazu Mera’s exquisite rendering of Erik Satie’s cafe melody, “Je te veux”.
Ars gratia artis. Or art for the sake of the artists*. I love you today and all days.
Here’s Stokowski, international maestro (and, like my beloved John Wilson, a graduate of the Royal College of Music) in my second favorite Deanna Durbin movie: 100 Men and a Girl. Directed by Henry Koster. Universal, 1937. Andre Previn‘s great-uncle Charles Previn, musical director, arranger, composer and conductor at Universal, won an Oscar for his score for 100 Men and a Girl. While at Universal, Previn accumulated over 225 films to his credit, including most of Deanna Durbin’s films.
The bass-baritone in the Bugs Bunny classic “Long-Haired Hare” (Warner Bros 1949), where the title of this posting comes from, is voiced by bass-baritone SF native (and, like my son, a former pupil at Mission High School) Nicolai Shutorev.
JOHANNES BRAHMS Variations on a Theme of Josef Haydn “The Philharmonia 75th anniversary CD box set contains some really thrilling performances from a dazzling array of soloists and conductors—Karajan, Giulini, Klemperer, Kletzki and Cantelli among them—but the ones I’m most fascinated by are the concerts Toscanini gave with the orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall in 1952 which provide a wonderful snapshot of the Philharmonia Orchestra live on stage in its first decade.” / John’s right on this one, can’t do better than Arturo Toscanini at the RFH in ’52 with the Philharmonia
MAURICE RAVEL Daphnis et Chloe Suite no 2 “Once it became apparent that we would all be spending our days at home, I decided to embark on a project I had been putting off for years:correcting all of the many thousands of errors in Ravel’s masterpiece, Daphnis et Chloe. I soon became thoroughly absorbed in this rather epic task and ended up completing a brand new edition of the whole ballet which I will be recording next year. Here’s the peerless Charles Munch conducting the Second Suite.” / Listen, you. If you can do better than Charles Dutoit (Montreal, 2005—the FULL 56 minutes, with CHORUS) I’ll plotz. (No matter what, you’ll always be number one with me, that won’t change.)
EDWARD ELGAR The Dream of Gerontius “I’ve been making my way through all 109 discs of the new Warner Classics Barbirolli box set—a conductor whose work I come back to time and time again. There’s a fervour and intensity to his music making that is utterly compelling and this legendary performance of Elgar’s greatest work has, for me, no equal.” / Elgar, a devout Roman Catholic, was something of a religious mystic and this is evident in his much of his work, no more so than in this looong, stately but yummy setting to Cardinal Newman’s musing on death and redemption
TEDDY WILSON Don’t Blame Me by Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields “I love, love, love Teddy Wilson’s piano playing—I’ve had his solo piano discs on a loop for days…” / Nah. If you want to hear one of the greatest swing* pianists ever at his best, here he is doing “I Got Rhythm” by the Gershwin brothers
KEELY SMITH Cocktails for Two by Arthur Johnston and Sam Coslow “Songs—in all their guises(!!!)**—have always been at the centre of my musical life. The great American songwriters from the first half of the last century gave us so many treasures and I’d never want to be without them. Last week my trombonist friend, Andy Wood, reminded me just how great Keely Smith is.” / When I was a little tiny teeny girl, I thought listening to Keely Smith singing this lush Charles Trenet-Albert Beach songbook standard “I Wish You Love” on the radio was like walking through an enchanted forest
*I am astonished that John actually, correctly, described Teddy Wilson as a Swing musician rather than put him into the catchall Jazz bag, which I’d have expected him to do, considering who was his teacher. His teacher was Richard Rodney Bennett. My teacher (at CUNY) was YUSEF LATEEF (download his 1957 album Jazz Mood here in full).
**John, are you conflating song with melody, or what? Only asking as a humble member of your audience.
Come again
Sweet love doth now invite
Thy graces that refrain
To do me due delight
To see, to hear
To touch, to kiss
To die with thee again
In sweetest sympathy
Come again
That I may cease to mourn
Through thy unkind disdain
For now left and forlorn
I sit, I sigh
I weep, I faint
I die, in deadly pain
And endless misery
Gentle love
Draw forth thy wounding dart:
Thou canst not pierce her heart;
For I that do approve
By sighs and tears
More hot than are
Thy shafts, did tempt while she
For scanty tryumphs laughs
~ Anonymous
More! THEMEThe Great Adventure (CBS, 1963) I remembered this theme note for note and was thrilled to find episodes of the series on YT again. Though I strongly suspect it was Richard Rodney Bennett who wrote this from his random notes
There were some particularly strong singers in the BBC Proms concert at the Royal Albert back in 2011 I take pleasure in remembering, on this gray Monday two days before The Inauguration. “Serenade” from The Student Prince was one of my mother’s favorite numbers, she just thrilled to it, especially when Mario Lanza was singing. “Can’t Help Singing” was in my Deanna Durbin Songbook when I was a teenager. “The Man That Got Away” was sung at my friend’s funeral—the friend who left me all his Andre Previn records—by his grieving lover. And then there’s “Secret Love”.
Disappointing to hear that John won’t be doing Britten’s The Turn of the Screw at Wilton’s Music Hall in London this month. So, to cheer everybody up, here’s the full 2-hour program of my John and The John Wilson Orchestra at the Proms, 2013. That’s Jane Monheit, John, and Matt Ford below.
SONG MEDLEY (YT): – “An Affair to Remember” (from the 1957 film; 20th Century Fox) / Harry Warren, Leo McCarey (the film’s director), Harold Damson – “Something’s Gotta Give” (from Daddy Long Legs; 20th Century Fox, 1955) / Johnny Mercer – “Young at Heart” (from the 1955 film; Warner Bros) / Johnny Richards, Carolyn Leigh – “It’s Magic” (from Romance On the High Seas; Warner Bros, 1948) / Jule Styne, Sammy Cahn – “The Tender Trap” (from the 1955 film; MGM) / Jimmy Van Heusen, Sammy Cahn – “My Foolish Heart” (from the 1949 film; Samuel Goldwyn/RKO) / Ned Washington, Victor Young – “Three Coins in the Fountain” (from the 1954 film; 20th Century Fox) / Jule Styne, Sammy Cahn – “Love is a Many-Splendored Thing” (from the 1955 film; 20th Century Fox) / Sammy Fain, Paul Francis Webster – “That’s Amore” (from The Caddy; Paramount, 1953) / Harry Warren, Jack Brooks – “Que Sera, Sera” (from The Man Who Knew Too Much; Paramount, 1956 / Jay Livingston, Ray Evans – “All the Way” (from The Joker is Wild, 1957; Paramount) / Jimmy Van Heusen, Sammy Cahn
A Place In the Sun (suite from the 1951 film; Paramount) / Franz Waxman
Well, John, this isn’t a Joan Crawford movie so there’s no gold cigarette case but as I’m still in love with you and want to give you nice things, I’ll give you my honest appraisals, which is something I’ve been doing all along anyway (I hope you’ll agree) and not throwing myself into Long Island Sound for your sake. So let’s do this organized, going down the numbers in the program one by one because, as you recall, I used to work at ASCAP:
“We’re In the Money” (from Gold Diggers of 1933) / Harry Warren, Al Dubin Count on you to include the lyrics in pig Latin.
“The Desert Song” (from the 1953 film) / Sigmund Romberg, Oscar Hammerstein II Meh. I think the only reason you worked this in is because Kim Criswell’s singing a Romberg song in your 5 January concert in Stockholm, “Softly, As In a Morning Sunrise”, which is a hot, HOT number. In fact I can’t believe you’re going to stand on the same stage when she sings that song and not get incinerated. But that’s just you I guess.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (suite; from the 1948 film) / Max Steiner God, I forgot how repetitive Max Steiner can be when he’s not cribbing from Herman Hupfeld.
The Old Man and the Sea (suite, 1st movement; from the 1958 film) / Dmitri Tiomkin One movement, mercifully short.
“Seventy-Six Trombones” (YT) (from The Music Man, 1962) / Meredith Willson I lost a bet to Mister Grumble that you would never, never, EVER do this number, ever. (Because, you know, it’s so OBVIOUS.) But…yeah, it was okay. No Andre Rieu though.
“Blues in the Night” (from Blues In the Night, 1941) / Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer A low-voiced woman should sing this. Preferably a woman who’s been there.
Auntie Mame (main title; from the 1958 film) / Bronislav Kaper You know, I’d forgotten how much I like this sweet waltz.
“The Man That Got Away” (from A Star is Born, 1954) / Harold Arlen, Ira Gershwin [in an obvious nod to the movie’s latest remake] Of all your singers, Louise Dearman is the only one who could’ve carried these two numbers in this room particularly, and whatever luck or good judgment (and I’m nuts about you dear, but I’m never completely confident about your judgment in these matters) brought her there I’m glad.
“Get Me to the Church On Time” (from My Fair Lady, 1962) / Frederick Loewe, Alan Jay Lerner A little harkening back to your 2012 Proms triumph, eh?
25-MINUTE INTERVAL Proms Plus Talk: a discussion of some of the great film scores being played tonight [Hah! In a pig’s eye] with Matthew Sweet, David Benedict and Pamela Hutchinson
Gypsy (overture; from the 1962 film) / Jule Styne, arr Ramin and Ginzler I still have the clip of you conducting this at the 2012 Proms (the other one). This one is sooo much hotter.
Now, Voyager (suite; from the 1942 film) / Max Steiner John, I’m afraid I really didn’t give this number a fair hearing the first time so I’m going to listen to it again and compare it to your Chandos 2022 recording. But you know, I almost missed the old dear telling Katie Derham that YOU wrote this arrangement because the Mountview kids down on the floor were leading a cheer [@1:05:00].
“The Deadwood Stage” (from Calamity Jane, 1953) / Sammy Fain, Paul Francis Webster [a Doris Day tribute] O-kay! A FULL number from a musical, complete with chorus—this is the very thing that made your name. All is forgiven.
“It’s Magic” (from Romance On the High Seas [correction, BBC: “On”, not “In”], 1948) / Jule Styne, Sammy Cahn [again, a Doris Day tribute] What in the name of heaven possessed whoever decided to include the worst song Jule Styne ever wrote? Redeemable only—only—if Bugs Bunny (YT) sings it.
A Streetcar Named Desire (main title; from the 1951 film) / Alex North Oh, you’re going to have fun with this one when you have to give sexy program notes to the audience from the podium, like you did in Brighton.
“The Days of Wine and Roses” (YT) (from the 1962 film) Henry Mancini arr Nelson Riddle, Johnny Mercer Nelson Riddle!? You used the freakin’ Nelson Riddle arrangement?? What are you trying to do, send love signals to Seth MacFarlane?
“Tomorrow” (from The Constant Nymph) / Erich Wolfgang Korngold You had this and your Prince Charming from Cendrillon, Kate Lindsey, up your sleeve! What a nice surprise.
ENCORE “I Could Have Danced All Night” (from My Fair Lady, 1962) / Frederick Loewe, Alan Jay Lerner Every soprano in the world wants to hear this song done right. She passes.
Above John at Glyndebourne, 2019: 
Above: The full audio of 
"I'll Be Dead Before You Break My Heart" 