Aspidistra
Drawing Room Orchestra
Annual May Bank Holiday Concert
This year the
concert will be held on the first
May Bank holiday, the 4th
of May and as in
previous years, we’ll be in
the lower gallery at Lauderdale
House: Doors open at 2:00pm and
the concert starts at 2:30pm. We
are looking forward seeing you
again and share some of our
latest discoveries from the music
archives as well as some of our
old favourites.
We are finalising
the programme and will announce
it in detail on our website www.aspidistra.org in a couple of
weeks
Ticket prices
haven’t changed for years
and we don’t need to correct
for inflation if we get a good
attendance. So we count on you to
keep the prices down: Tickets
£10, Concessions £9, Kids £5
can be obtained from Lauderdale House in advance or on
the door.
The address of the
venue is:
Lauderdale House,
Highgate Hill,
London, N6 5HG
April 2026
For information
about past and upcoming episodes
of Friday Night is
Music Night on BBC
Radio 3 you can follow this link:
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001xmxc/episodes/player
It shows previous
episodes which are still
available for replay via BBC
Sounds (for up to 30 days after
broadcast).
Coming up
soon:-
BBC Radio 3 at 7.30pm
Friday
24th April 2026
Classical Music in Film
Karen Ni Bhroin conducts
the BBC Concert Orchestra live at
Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham,
with special guest pianist Clare
Hammond and clarinettist James
Gilbert in a concert showcasing
the inventive way directors have
appropriated classical music in
their films.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002v1kf
Friday 1st
May 2026
Cheltenham Festival (repeat)
In honour of 80 years of
spying in Cheltenham the BBC
Concert Orchestra were at the
2026 Cheltenham Festival with
conductor Karen Ni Bhroin and
singer/presenter Clare Teal and a
concert of music associated with
espionage.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002f7rn
Friday 8th
May 2026
80th anniversary of VE Day
The BBC Concert
Orchestra, conductor Richard
Balcombe, the Central Band of the
Royal Air Force, conductor Wing
Commander Richard Murray and
soloists commemorate the 80th
anniversary of VE Day, with
music, readings and a first hand
account from Joyce Terry, who
entertained the troops as part of
the Ivy Benson Band - the first
civilians in Berlin in 1945.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002bg2f
Friday
15th May 2026
Rodgers and Hammerstein from the
Royal and Derngate Theatre
Northampton
Richard Balcombe
conducts the BBC Concert
Orchestra, with singers Katie
Birtill and Patrick Smyth,
celebrating one of the most
enduring partnerships from the
golden age of American musicals.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002vy3f
April 2026
2026
Museum Events
(click
image to enlarge)
February 2026
Review of
Aspidistra Drawing Room Orchestra
St Valentine’s Day Concert
The ADRO has, for
many years now, given a Spring
Concert at the historic
Lauderdale House on Highgate Hill
in North London.
For the first time
this year, we are fortunate to
have been treated to an extra
event – a St.
Valentine’s Day Concert,
held in the evening of February
14th.
You can
read the full report on the
concert here
February 2026
(click to
enlarge)
December 2025
The
Midland Radio Orchestra
Serenade
Radio at 5.00pm
on 1st January 2026
An hour of great
archive orchestral music
curated by The NDO Project
producer Ian Reed
Listen here!
December 2025
Friday
Night is Music Night
on BBC Four on Christmas Day!
Gavin Sutherland
advised us that he conducted a
(live) FNIMN last December from
Snape Maltings, and the BBC also
filmed it and broadcast it on Christmas
Day 2025 on BBC FOUR
So there is still
hope about light music on
television!!
The programme is
available to view on BBC iPlayer
for 11 months, HERE.
December 2025
Icons of
British Light Music
BBC Radio 3
presented by Donald Mcleod
The names of the
composers of British light music
- Coates, Ketèlby, Farnon, Dring
or Tomlinson - might not be as
well known as those of Mozart,
Beethoven or Bach, but some of
their music will be just as
familiar to most listeners, and
it still provides the soundtrack
to many people's everyday lives
through, among other things, the
theme music to their favourite TV
and radio programmes.
Over the course of
the week, Donald Macleod tracks
the rise and fall of light music
in Britain over roughly 100
years, from the mid-19th century
to the mid-20th. He’ll be
exploring the social history
which led to this genre
flourishing, from the
late-Victorian theatre crowds in
want of more popular fare after
the successes of Gilbert and
Sullivan’s operettas, to the
orchestras which sprang up to
entertain the burgeoning UK
seaside resorts.
Along the way,
Donald will examine the explosion
of music in people’s homes,
as at first pianos and other
instruments, and then radio and
television sets, became
affordable to households across
the country, and the transition
from silent movies to the
talkies.
Donald will also
explore the challenges which the
genre faced as audiences moved
towards new ways of listening in
the 20th century and the pioneers
who have sought to keep this
music alive.
You can
still listen to the programmes here.
November 2025
Happy
Birthday
Petula Clark!
Petula Clark
celebrated 93 years on 15th
November 2025, with over 82 years
in show business.
And you can hear
her in what long-standing fans
have called her "fullest and
frankest ever" interview -
you can find it here: http://rosebudpodcast.co.uk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petula_Clark
September 2025
Happy
Birthday!
Pete
Murray OBE
100th Birthday on Friday 19th
September
Pete Murray OBE,
British radio and television
presenter and actor. He is known
for his career with the BBC,
including stints on the Light
Programme, Radio 1, Radio 2 and
Radio 4. In the 1950s, Murray
became one of Britain's first pop
music television presenters,
hosting the rock and roll
programme Six-Five Special
(1957–1958) and appearing as
a regular panellist on Juke Box
Jury (1959–1967).
He was a recurring presence in
the BBC's coverage of the
Eurovision Song Contest. Pete
retired in 2002 before he
returned to broadcasting for a
Boom Radio special on Boxing Day
2021, over 70 years after his
career began. He returned to the
station on Boxing Day 2022 where
he presented a two-hour show
alongside his friend David
Hamilton.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Murray_(DJ)
Johnny
Mathis
90th Birthday on Tuesday 30th
September
Johnny Mathis,
American singer, started his
69-year career with singles of
standard music. He is one of the
best-selling recording artists of
the 20th century and became
highly popular as an album
artist, with several of his
albums achieving gold or platinum
status and 73 making the
Billboard charts.
Mathis has received the Grammy
Lifetime Achievement Award and
has been inducted into the Grammy
Hall of Fame for three
recordings. Although frequently
described as a romantic singer,
his discography includes
traditional pop, Latin American,
soul, rhythm and blues, show
tunes, Tin Pan Alley, soft rock,
blues, country music, and even a
few disco songs for his album
Mathis Magic in 1979. Mathis has
also recorded seven albums of
Christmas music. In a 1968
interview, he cited Lena Horne,
Nat King Cole, and Bing Crosby
among his musical influences.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Mathis
August 2025
Dancing in
Vienna
SOMMCD 0708
Release Date: 15th
August 2025
SOMM Recordings
celebrates the wealth of popular
concert music produced in Vienna
in the 19th and early 20th
centuries with a release called Dancing
in Vienna, an exhilarating
collection of waltzes to set your
feet tapping. The Philharmonic
Concert Orchestra is led by the
versatile Scottish conductor,
Iain Sutherland, whose previous,
wide-ranging collaborations with
SOMM have received enthusiastic
critical response: "strong
and trenchant, often
exhilarating, never
sentimental," Gramophone;
"getting pretty much
everything right, every nuance
and subtle rhythm," Amazon
USA.
More information: somm-recordings.com/recording/dancing-in-vienna/
May 2025
New CD
from Gavin Sutherland
The new album by
GAVIN SUTHERLAND conducting THE
FAST TUNES ORCHESTRA and ROYAL
BALLET SINFONIA.
Newly recorded at Abbey Road
Studios
available from
Ebay on CD or Double LP
52 tracks (see
Ebay item descriptions for full
details)
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