Conducted by Franck Ollu, who performed with the Ensemble Modern on the original Yellow Shark recording, the Manson Ensemble present a selection of instrumental Zappa classics alongside new transcriptions by Head of Composition, Philip Cashian, and current composition students. The programme includes Peaches en Regalia, Big Swifty, Dupree’s Paradise and new transcriptions of Music For Low-Budget Orchestra and Alien Orifice.
The programme will be broadcast live at www.roundhouse.org.uk/live, again – see the (pretty exciting) programme here.
The MANSON ensemble!?!?!?!
What a name!
The only Roundhouse event I managed to get to was the London Sinfonietta, although I caught most of the stream of ZPZ. I’m really looking forward to hearing arrangements made by composition students at this RAM concert. It is especially exciting to me that the upcoming generation of composers are involved with Zappa’s music in this way.
Its today – but at the moment the Roundhouse homepage doesn’t seem to be very lively – I hope it will work properly in time.
“Sorry our website is experiencing problems due to exceptionally high demand.” – ehhh…
Are we sure it is being broadcast? I am having trouble coming up with that statement in print on either the Roundhouse or the RAM site.
They were about to broadcast it, but it seems the site died for now: awfully slow, IF it works at all.
What a pity, I’d have loved to hear today’s program…
Did anyone attend this concert? I’am curiuos about it.
I was there and it was almost sold out downstairs. There may have been seats free in the balcony but I couldn’t really see. It started with a rather shaky ‘Peaches’ which they played much better in the encore. They seemed to really warm up by the third number – Dupree’s Paradise. Most of the playing was very enthusiastic with a the principal mallet percussionist deserving a special mention for his commitment and understanding of eyebrows in the FZ sense.
I felt that the pieces that Zappa had originally intended for orchestra worked better in terms of texture and clarity of the various voices than the arrangements. The Perfect Stranger sounded more coherent as a piece to me than the Boulez recording, so well done Manson Ensemble and Franck Ollu. The audience loved the concert and we were treated to second, improved performances of Peaches and St. Alfonso’s Pancake Breakfast as encores. (There may have been more but I had to leave then.)
As for the webcast, there was no sign of any camera equipment and I just saw the standard crossed pair of mics that most halls use to create a stereo archive recording. I doubt they had intended to webcast it.
thanks for the info, Al!
Hi, actually I was playing in the manson ensemble on that day.
Thank you so much for coming to listen us and I am so sorry for those who couldn’t listen on the web broadcasting.
We recorded the whole programme after the concert, so I think RAM will release a CD near future.
Again, Thank you so much for everyone for an wonderful opportunity!!
Hi ac!
Great to hear that you were a part of the programme!
I’m looking forward to hear the CD sometimes, but meanwhile it would be interesting to hear a musician’s point of view about the event! About the pieces, did you know them before, did you like them (which one, why?), was it hard to learn – etc etc. The readers of Kill Ugly Radio would gladly read it! 🙂