The Pocket Orchestra
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The Pocket Orchestra
''The Pocket Orchestra'' is a play written by Graeme Garden, with the music scored by Callum McLeod. It ran in London at Trafalgar Studios 2 from 26 April 2006 until 20 May 2006. The idea was devised by Callum McLeod after putting together a concert of his father's favourite pieces of classical music arranged for small groups of musicians.Interview by Sean Rafferty on BBC Radio 3's ''In Tune'', 19 April 2006. The director was Richard Williams, the designer David Collis and the lighting designer David Horn. Subtitled "The Unlikely Lives of the Great Composers", it is a 90-minute history of classical music told through the lives of the great composers. Twenty-six composers are featured on stage during the course of the show, which features live performances from a cast of six actor/musicians who were Sebastian Bates, Emma Correlle, Karen Fisher-Pollard, Ella Smith, Paul Arden-Griffiths, Ian Harris and additionally has former ''Doctor Who'' star Sylvester McCoy as the host (or Showma ...
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Graeme Garden
David Graeme Garden OBE (born 18 February 1943) is a Scottish comedian, actor, author, artist and television presenter, best known as a member of The Goodies and a regular panellist on ''I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue''. Early life and education Garden was born in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and raised in Preston, Lancashire, England, only son (with a daughter) of (1910-1982), an eminent orthopaedic surgeon who created the Garden classification of hip fractures, and his wife Janet Ann (née McHardy). R. S. Garden's parents, John and Elizabeth, farmed at Macduff, Banff and Buchan, Aberdeenshire. Garden was educated at Repton School, and studied medicine at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he joined the Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club and served as its president in 1964, while also performing in the 1964 Footlights revue, ''Stuff What Dreams Are Made Of'' at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Garden qualified in medicine at King's College London, but has never ...
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Callum McLeod
Callum is a Scottish Gaelic name that commemorates the Latin name Columba, meaning 'dove'. Callum was popular among early Christians because the dove was a symbol of purity, peace and the Holy Spirit. St. Columba was one of the most influential of the early Celtic saints. The name may also be spelled "Calum". Callum is a popular name, especially in Scotland where it was the 34th most popular name for baby boys in 2017. People with the given name *Callum Ah Chee (born 1997), Australian rules footballer *Callum Ainley (born 1997), English footballer *Callum Ball (born 1992), English footballer * Callum Barker (born 1997), Australian motorcycle racer *Callum Black (born 1986), American-born Irish rugby union player *Callum Blake (born 1994), Vanuatuan cricketer *Callum Blue (born 1977), English actor *Callum Braley (born 1994), English rugby union player *Callum Brittain, English footballer *Callum Brodrick (born 1998), English cricketer *Callum Brown (born 1998), Australian rules f ...
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Trafalgar Studios 2
Trafalgar most often refers to: * Battle of Trafalgar (1805), fought near Cape Trafalgar, Spain * Trafalgar Square, a public space and tourist attraction in London, England It may also refer to: Music * ''Trafalgar'' (album), by the Bee Gees Places * Cape Trafalgar, a headland in Cádiz, Spain * Trafalgar, the name of the British Shipping Forecast's sea region surrounding Cape Trafalgar * Trafalgar, Indiana, a town in the United States * Trafalgar Township, a former municipality in Ontario, Canada * Trafalgar Moraine, in Oakville, Ontario, Canada * Trafalgar, Nova Scotia, Canada, a community within the Municipality of the District of St. Mary's, Guysborough County * Trafalgar, Victoria, a town in Gippsland, Victoria, Australia * Trafalgar, Dominica, a village and waterfall in the St. George province of the Commonwealth of Dominica, West Indies * Trafalgar, KwaZulu-Natal, a seaside village in South Africa * Trafalgar, Hougang, a subzone of the town of Hougang located in north-e ...
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BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts also featuring. The station describes itself as "the world's most significant commissioner of new music", and through its BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme, New Generation Artists scheme promotes young musicians of all nationalities. The station broadcasts the The Proms, BBC Proms concerts, live and in full, each summer in addition to performances by the BBC Orchestras and Singers. There are regular productions of both classic plays and newly commissioned drama. Radio 3 won the Sony Radio Academy UK Station of the Year Gold Award for 2009 and was nominated again in 2011. According to RAJAR, the station broadcasts to a weekly audience of 1.7 million with a listening share of 1.3% as of September 2022. History Radio 3 is the ...
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Richard Williams (theatre Director)
Richard Williams is a theatre director, producer and teacher working mainly in the areas of dramatic and lyric presentation. Richard Williams’ career has concerned classics, new plays, music theatre and opera productions. In a directing career lasting some 35 years he has directed more than 250 productions. He has been Artistic Director of four theatre companies - Contact Theatre, Manchester, where he was awarded Best Director Award two years running, The Oxford Stage Company, Unicorn (Arts) Theatre, London (1990-1997) and Liverpool Playhouse (1996-1998). His varied opera work includes seventeen years as director of opera at the Dartington International Music Festival as well as a flourishing freelance career. He was given Barclays Regional Theatre Award and The Liverpool Echo Award in recognition of his work at Liverpool Playhouse. He directed the Glyn Robbins adaptations of ''The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'' (at the Westminster Theatre, 1984) and ''Winnie the Pooh'' ...
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Doctor Who
''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the universe in a time-travelling space ship called the TARDIS. The TARDIS exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. With various companions, the Doctor combats foes, works to save civilisations, and helps people in need. Beginning with William Hartnell, thirteen actors have headlined the series as the Doctor; in 2017, Jodie Whittaker became the first woman to officially play the role on television. The transition from one actor to another is written into the plot of the series with the concept of regeneration into a new incarnation, a plot device in which a Time Lord "transforms" into a new body when the current one is too badly harmed to heal normally. Each acto ...
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Sylvester McCoy
Percy James Patrick Kent-Smith (born 20 August 1943), known professionally as Sylvester McCoy, is a Scottish actor. Gaining prominence as a physical comedian, he became best known for playing the seventh incarnation of the Doctor in the long-running science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'' from 1987 to 1989—the final Doctor of the original run—and briefly returning in a television film in 1996. He is also known for his work as Radagast in ''The Hobbit'' film series (2012–2014). Early life McCoy was born Percy James Patrick Kent-Smith in Dunoon, on the Cowal peninsula, to an Irish mother and an English father who had been killed in action in World War II a couple of months before his son was born. He was brought up by his maternal grandmother and aunts and met his father's family at the age of 17. He was raised religious, but is now an atheist. He was brought up primarily in Dunoon, where he attended St. Mun's School; he then studied for the priesthood at Bla ...
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The Barber Of Seville
''The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution'' ( it, Il barbiere di Siviglia, ossia L'inutile precauzione ) is an ''opera buffa'' in two acts composed by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's French comedy ''The Barber of Seville'' (1775). The première of Rossini's opera (under the title ''Almaviva, o sia L'inutile precauzione'') took place on 20 February 1816 at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, with designs by Angelo Toselli. Rossini's ''Barber of Seville'' has proven to be one of the greatest masterpieces of comedy within music, and has been described as the opera buffa of all "opere buffe". After two hundred years, it remains a popular work. Composition history Rossini's opera recounts the events of the first of the three plays by French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais that revolve around the clever and enterprising character named Figaro, the barber of the title. Mozart's opera ''The Marriage of Fi ...
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John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives. Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition ''4′33″'', which is performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who present the work do nothing aside from being present for the duration specified by the title. The content of the composition is not "four minutes and 33 seconds of silence," as is often assumed, but rather the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance. The work's challenge t ...
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4′33″
''4′33″'' (pronounced "four minutes, thirty-three seconds" or just "four thirty-three") is a three- movement composition by American experimental composer John Cage. It was composed in 1952, for any instrument or combination of instruments, and the score instructs performers not to play their instruments during the entire duration of the piece throughout the three movements. The piece consists of the sounds of the environment that the listeners hear while it is performed, although it is commonly misperceived as "four minutes thirty-three seconds of silence". The title of the piece refers to the total length in minutes and seconds of a given performance, ''4′33″'' being the total length of the first public performance. Conceived around 1947–48, while the composer was working on ''Sonatas and Interludes'', ''4′33″'' became for Cage the epitome of his idea that any auditory experience may constitute music. It was also a reflection of the influence of Zen Buddhism, whic ...
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Spoon (musical Instrument)
Spoons can be played as a makeshift percussion instrument, or more specifically, an idiophone related to the castanets. They are played by hitting one spoon against the other. Techniques # Fire tongs style: A pair of spoons is held tight with concave sides facing out and with index finger between their handles to space them apart. When the pair is struck, the spoons sharply hit each other and then spring back to their original position. The spoons are typically struck against the knee and the palm of the hand. The fingers and other body parts may also be used as striking surfaces to produce different sounds, rhythms, rattles and visual effects. # Salad serving style: One spoon between little, ring, and long finger; the other spoon between ring, thumb, and index finger in such a way that they can be rotated with ring finger as the common axis. They can be hit to each other at the convex sides by gathering the fingers (mostly middle and thumb). # Castanets style: Two in each h ...
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