Thomas

About Thomas

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5 September

Update for 2022/23

Hello everyone,

After three years of posting a piece of music everyday, this site will be taking a little break from making that happen.

The PowerPoints are still available to download and will, in the main, be lined up to match most days and events in the school year – things like UK patron saints days may not link up, but most things will.

The reason for stopping daily posts is partly due to time, but mostly due to an idea I’ve had – an upgrade, if you like.

MusicOfTheDay.co.uk is currently a work in progress to replace this site. Everything that’s currently here will move to the new site – PowerPoints and all – but there will be 366 pieces of music aligned to each day of the year. I hope to get this organised, up and running and looking fab by January… but time will tell.

Until then, get in touch if I can help in any way.

Thomas

26 July

Anneleen Lenaerts (1987-) – La Dolce Vita Suite

Thomas Music Lenaerts 0

Anneleen Lenaerts
from https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/12/29/arts/29harp-inyt/29harp-inyt-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp

Anneleen Lenaerts is a Belgian harpist.

Lenaerts enjoyed her harp training with Lieve Robbroeckx and then at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, where she received the master’s degree in harp in 2008. Afterwards, she went to Paris for the ‘Cours de perfectionnement’ at the École Normale de Musique de Paris with Isabelle Perrin. She also took master classes with many leading harpists. She also studied harmony, counterpoint and fugue at the Brussels Conservatory.

In December 2010 she was appointed as a solo harpist with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna State Opera.

25 July

Freddie Mercury (1946-1991) – Somebody To Love

Thomas Music Mercury 0

Freddie Mercury
Peter Roshler: COPYRIGHT Mercury Songs Ltd.

Farrokh Bulsara, known as Freddie Mercury, was a British singer, songwriter, record producer, and lead vocalist of the rock band Queen. Regarded as one of the greatest lead singers in the history of rock music, he was known for his flamboyant stage persona and four-octave vocal range. Mercury defied the conventions of a rock frontman, with his highly theatrical style influencing the artistic direction of Queen.

Born in 1946 in Zanzibar, he attended English-style boarding schools in India from the age of 8. Having studied and written music for years, he formed Queen in 1970 with guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor. Mercury wrote numerous hits for Queen, including Killer Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody and Don’t Stop Me Now.

22 July

Joby Talbot (1971-) – Once Around The Sun, VIII: August – Cloudpark

Thomas Music Talbot 0

VIII: August – Cloudpark

Joby Talbot

Joby Talbot is a British composer who has written for a wide variety of purposes and in a broad range of styles, including instrumental and vocal concert music, film and television scores, pop arrangements and works for dance.

In 2004, Joby wrote 12 pieces for five instruments, one for each month of the year.

21 July

Nino Rota (1911-1979) – The Godfather Waltz

Thomas Music Rota 0

Nino Rota
in 1923, by Agence de presse Meurisse – Bibliothèque nationale de France, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18470069

Giovanni Rota Rinaldi, better known as Nino Rota, was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor and academic who is best known for his film scores, notably for the films of Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti. He also composed the music for two of Franco Zeffirelli’s Shakespeare films, and for the first two films of Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather trilogy, receiving the Academy Award for Best Original Score for The Godfather Part II in 1974.

During his long career, Rota was an extraordinarily prolific composer, especially of music for the cinema. He wrote more than 150 scores for Italian and international productions from the 1930s until his death in 1979 – an average of 3 scores each year over a 46-year period; writing 13 in 1954 alone! Alongside this great body of film work, he composed ten operas, five ballets and dozens of other orchestral, choral and chamber works, the best known being his string concerto.

20 July

Hans Zimmer (1957-) – Time

Thomas Music Zimmer 0

Hans Zimmer
cy ColliderVideo, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74281970

Hans Florian Zimmer is a German film score composer and record producer. Zimmer’s works are notable for integrating electronic music sounds with traditional orchestral arrangements. Since the 1980s, he has composed music for over 150 films. His works include The Lion King, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Score in 1995, the Pirates of the Caribbean series and The Dark Knight Trilogy. He has received four Grammy Awards, three Classical BRIT Awards, two Golden Globes, and an Academy Award.

Zimmer spent the early part of his career in the United Kingdom before moving to the United States. He is the head of the film music division at DreamWorks studios and works with other composers through the company that he founded, Remote Control Productions. His studio in Santa Monica, California has an extensive range of computer equipment and keyboards, allowing demo versions of film scores to be created quickly.

19 July

Benedetto Marcello (1686-1739) – Cello Sonata No.1 F Major

Thomas Music Marcello 0

Benedetto Marcello
by Vincenzo Roscioni – This image comes from Gallica Digital Library and is available under the digital ID btv1b8426535d/f1.item, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11552469

Benedetto Giacomo Marcello was an Italian composer, writer, advocate, magistrate, and teacher.

Born in Venice, Benedetto Marcello was a member of a noble family and his compositions are frequently referred to as Patrizio Veneto. Benedetto managed to combine a life in law and public service with one in music. In 1711 he was appointed a member of the Council of Forty (in Venice’s central government), and in 1730 he went to Pola as Provveditore (district governor).

Benedetto Marcello was the brother of Alessandro Marcello, also a notable composer.

18 July

Alessandro Marcello (1673-1747) – Oboe Concerto in C minor: Adagio

Thomas Music Marcello 0

Alessandro Marcello
by Unknown author – http://www.portraitindex.de/documents/obj/33804341, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37839609

Alessandro Ignazio Marcello was an Italian nobleman and composer.

Born in Venice, Marcello was the son of a senator. As such, he enjoyed a comfortable life that gave him the scope to pursue his interest in music. He held concerts in his hometown and also composed and published several sets of concertos, including 6 concertos under the title of La Cetra (The Lyre), as well as cantatas, arias, canzonets, and violin sonatas.

Originally written in D minor, this piece has been loved by other composers so much that they have added to it. Johann Sebastian Bach’s solo keyboard arrangement of the concerto, BWV 974, dates from around 1715.

16 July

One For The Weekend: Ennio Morricone (1928-2020) – The Ecstasy of Gold from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Thomas Music Morricone 0

Ennio Morricone
by Georges Biard, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21288724

Ennio Morricone was an Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, and former trumpet player, writing in a wide range of musical styles. Morricone composed over 400 scores for cinema and television, as well as over 100 classical works. He started as a talented football player for A.S. Roma but quickly left the sport to follow his passion for music. His score to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is considered one of the most influential soundtracks in history.

After playing the trumpet in jazz bands in the 1940s, he began writing for film and theatre in 1955.

Morricone’s best-known compositions include The Ecstasy of Gold, Se Telefonando and Gabriel’s Oboe. In 1971, he received an award for achieving worldwide sales of 22 million, and by 2016 Morricone had sold over 70 million records worldwide. In 2016, Morricone received his first Oscar for his work, at the time becoming the oldest person ever to win one.

Have a lovely weekend – I hope this takes you into it with a sense of wonder and passion!

15 July

Stephen Warbeck (1953-) – Pelagia’s Song

Thomas Music Warbeck 0

Stephen Warbeck
from https://res.cloudinary.com/dr6f47ka1/image/fetch/c_fill,g_face,f_auto/https://works-files.s3.amazonaws.com/a3fe1004-9f43-495b-8d0c-b42926bee1b1

Stephen Warbeck is an English composer, best known for his film and television scores.

Stephen Warbeck was born in Southampton, England. He first became known for the music for Prime Suspect and won an Oscar for his score for Shakespeare in Love. He won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play in 1994.

Warbeck attended Bristol University, and began his career as an actor. He plays the accordion.

In 2018 he directed his first feature film The Thin Man which has since been retitled The Man In The Hat in France starring Ciarán Hinds and Stephen Dillane.

Pelagia’s Song is from the 2001 film Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.