All the Right Notes 2012

11 December 2012

This December, our local orchestras will grace the big stage, performing at Palmerston North’s Regent Theatre as part of a show which promises to break classical music free of its serious stereotype.

All the Right Notes: just not necessarily in the right order is the creation of Mr Kane Parsons, most recently acclaimed as the lead in The Buddy Holly Story. Inspired by the great Danish pianist/comedian Victor Borge, Mr Parsons’ show takes its audience on a journey through the history of classical music – but not as we know it.

Having successfully hit All the Right Notes as a solo performance, Mr Parsons has now enlisted the talents of the Manawatu Sinfonia and Youth Orchestra, with conductor Peter Ellery, to take the show to new musical heights. And the orchestras have embraced the opportunity.

Performing in All the Right Notes will offer local orchestras a new foray into the wider community. Performing at the Regent Theatre is an aspiration of many orchestra members and an opportunity which is rare in the offering. It will undoubtedly raise their profile in the Manawatu.

Not only will the show present the orchestras’ talents to a larger audience, it will also present them in a format with wide appeal. Victor Borge (1909-2000) made an art of bringing serious classical music to the people through comedy and is famous for his signature ‘stand up’ act, blending classical works and humour, which resonated with young and old alike.

All the Right Notes mimics this style, presenting the music of the big names – Beethoven, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, and more – in a way which makes it accessible and enjoyable to all. This offers the orchestras the opportunity to present themselves in a new light to the public within a more family-friendly, comedic format, more accessible to the general population.

The challenge will be to work beyond previously conceived notions of orchestral music and channel their talents in a new and inventive way, but the orchestras’ players are up for the challenge and prepared for the unexpected. For, as the Clown Prince of Denmark himself joked:

This is a wonderful orchestra. Every musician is an artist in her or his own right. It’s only when we play together that we might have a little problem. -Victor Borge

All the Right Notes: just not necessarily in the right order is on Sunday 16th December, 7.30pm at the Regent on Broadway.
Book at ticketdirect (0800 ticketdirect) or the Regent Theatre box office.

ENDS

© Scoop Media