Happy 90th Birthday, Ernest Tomlinson
Catherine Bott celebrates the life and works of Ernest Tomlinson MBE, composer extraordinaire of British light music.
Tonight on the Full Works Concert, Catherine Bott celebrates the life and music of Ernest Tomlinson MBE, one of the finest exponents of British light music, as he turns 90.
The Lancashire-born composer has written a large number of works, including overtures, suites, rhapsodies, miniatures and English folk-dance arrangements. He has also composed three concertos, a one-act opera Head of the Family, a ballet Aladdin, a Festival of Song for chorus and orchestra and numerous works for choirs, brass bands and concert bands.
He has won several prestigious awards including the Composers' Guild Award in 1965 and two Ivor Novello Awards. In 1984, he founded The Library of Light Orchestral Music, housed in a barn at his farmhouse in Lancashire. The library currently contains around 10,000 pieces, including many items that would otherwise have been lost. He was given an MBE in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to music (pictured).
Tonight, Catherine enjoys some of Ernest Tomlinson's best-loved pieces, including the Suite of English Folk Dances and the Fantasia on Auld Lang Syne.
An English Overture
Ernest Tomlinson conducts the Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava)
First Suite of English Folk Dances
Vivian Dunn conducts the Light Music Society Orchestra
Fantasia on Auld Lang Syne
Gavin Sutherland conducts the Royal Ballet Sinfonia
Silverthorn Suite
Ernest Tomlinson conducts the Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava)
Dances from Aladdin
Ernest Tomlinson conducts the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Little Serenade
Ronald Corp conducts the New London Orchestra
Light Music Suite
Ernest Tomlinson conducts the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Rhapsody and Rondo for Horn and Orchestra
Ernest Tomlinson conducts the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Second Suite of English Folk Dances
Ernest Tomlinson conducts the Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava)
