BBC Prom 57. Henry Mancini. Blues in the night, Rain in Rio etc

BBC Concert Orchestra

Сconductor  Edwin Outwater

MonicaMancini, guest vocalist

Rachel John, vocalist

Oliver Tompsett, vocalist

This was the first performance conducted by Edwin Outwater as the BBC Concert Orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor.

This season the BBC has reached out to an ever wider audience of music lovers; fewer concerts of what we think of as ‘true’ classical music and more of every genre of popular music, but all played by 'classical' orchestras. Last night it was the turn of the BBC Concert Orchestra to play in the Nightclub the BBC had created in the Albert Hall.

We were presented with lounge music particularly featuring Henry Mancini, it being the hundred year anniversary of his birth, but also Bert Bacharach and many others who learned at the feet of Mancini. Mel Giedroyc, excelled as our host. She led us from tune to tune in a very light-hearted manner. Throughout the show she had a brilliant repartee with Edwin Outwater, in which he never actually got to say anything!

I realised I was in a very different Albert Hall when I arrived and ordered a drink at the bar. I asked if I could take it into the auditorium. The barmaid smiled at me and said that not only could I take it into the auditorium but I could come and go throughout the performance and buy as many drinks as I liked! The moment the conductor raised his batton and 24 powerful red spotlights shone across the auditorium like lasers I was in the BBC lounge. The orchestra struck up Charade and we were carried back to the 60's.

The melodies came and went, like a waterfall, one upon the next with scarcely a gap between for Mel Giedroyc to make sure we kept on smiling. We were treated to Rachel John's beautiful renditions of 'Alfie', 'The Look of Love', and 'This Guy's in Love with You'. Other vocal pieces were performed by the BBC Singers and the show wrapped up by Oliver Tompsett singing, 'Whats New Pussycat?' and finally 'Music to Watch Girls By'.

It would be unfair of me to try and single out particular tracks for praise because it would all be personal preference depending on my memories, but if I had to choose one, it would be 'Hawaii Five-O' written by Morton Stevens - it evoked those Hawaiian warriors racing their canoes through the sea and a feeling of excitement I felt in the younger me. That's how the concert left me, feeling 30 years younger and very much alive!

Paul Lakra