Gershwinicity Art Deco Trio

• George Gershwin (1898 - 1937):
• 1 I Got Rhythm (From "Girl Crazy") 02:02
• 2 They All Laughed (From "Shall We Dance") 03:57
• 3 The Man I Love (From "Strike Up the Band") 03:31
• 4 Nice Work If You Can Get It (From "A Damsel in Distress") 03:46
• 5 Summertime (From "Porgy and Bess") 07:56
• 6 They Can't Take That Away From Me (From "Shall We Dance") 04:51
• 7 Fidgety Feet (From "Oh, Kay!") 03:20
• 8 Love Is Here to Stay (From "The Goldwyn Follies") 05:06
• 9 I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise (From "George White's Scandals") 04:07
• 10 Do It Again (From "The French Doll") 03:51
• 11 It Ain't Necessarily So (From "Porgy and Bess") 02:42
• 12 Someone to Watch Over Me (From "Oh, Kay!") 04:52
• 13 I've Got a Crush on You (From "Treasure Girl" & "Strike Up the Band") 03:45
• 14 But Not for Me (From "Girl Crazy") 02:49
• Iain Farrington (b. 1977):
• 15 Gershwinicity (After Gershwin) 14:18
• Total Runtime 01:10:53

Info for Gershwinicity

SOMM RECORDINGS is delighted to announce the debut recording of composer-pianist Iain Farrington's Art Deco Trio, featuring 15 new instrumental arrangements blending classical and jazz influences of songs by George Gershwin. In 2012, Farrington played piano in the London Olympic Games' opening ceremony in a comic performance of Chariots of Fire with Rowan Atkinson (as Mr. Bean) and the LSO conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. His Beethoveniana - a thrilling distillation of Beethoven's nine symphonies into a seven- minute piece for 323 BBC orchestra musicians, the BBC Singers and two dancers - was a highlight of the locked-down 2020 BBC Proms. Taking it's name from the defining style of the Gershwin era, the Art Deco Trio - Peter Sparks, Kyle Horch and Farrington - "mixes elegance and clean lines with the exuberance and bold colours" of it's distinctive signature. The album takes it's title from Farrington's "fantasia" on five Gershwin standards stamped through with infectious rhythmic energy and the most memorable of melodies. First heard in shorter form at the 2018 BBC Proms, Gershwinicity is a dazzling celebration of one the 20th century's most popular songwriters. The melody-filled material ranges from early hits such as I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise and The Man I Love to the late, lasting classics They All Laughed and Our Love is Here to Stay. Gershwin's stage masterpiece Porgy and Bess is represented by arrangements of Summertime and It Ain't Necessarily So, alongside Broadway favourites (The Man I Love, I Got Rhythm) and rarities (Fidgety Feet, I've Got a Crush on You).

Art Deco Trio:
Peter Sparks, clarinet
Kyle Horch, saxophone
Iain Farrington, piano

The Art Deco Trio
performs classical and popular music with a jazz influence. They combine the materials and textures of the classical repertoire with the rhythms and harmonies of jazz. Like the Art Deco style, their music mixes elegance and clean lines with exuberance and bold colours. The trio is made up of three friends and colleagues, who have performed together in numerous ensembles at many of the leading UK venues. They have recorded an album of new Gershwin arrangements for SOMM Recordings, called Gershwinicity. Selections of the album have featured on BBC Radio Three, La Scala Radio, RTE Lyric FM, France Musique. Their second album, called Classical Changes, is released in February 2023, and features jazz-inspired arrangements of Classical favourites.

Peter Sparks
read music at Cambridge University, studying clarinet with the late Dame Thea King. He subsequently studied at the Royal Academy of Music, under Angela Malsbury and Nick Rodwell. Peter is Co-Principal Clarinet at English National Opera, and has performed as guest Principal Clarinet with most of the leading symphony, chamber and opera orchestras in the UK with concerts, broadcasts and recordings at home and abroad. A busy chamber musician, Peter performs with a number of different ensembles, including London Winds, with whom he frequently broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 and performs in UK venues such as the Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, BBC Proms as well as at international festivals.

​Peter also records as a session musician for a variety of TV shows and films, including The Crown. Peter is an accomplished soloist and has performed numerous concertos such as those by Mozart, Debussy, Adams, Finzi, Copland, Weber and both Konzertstuck by Mendelssohn with Michael Collins. He has premiered many new works and has an affinity for contemporary music. Some commissions include works by Nicola LeFanu and two pieces by Peter Wiegold (including a bass clarinet concerto, ‘New York’), which were premiered in the Park Lane Group series. Peter also teaches clarinet at the Royal College of Music, London.

Kyle Horch
studied in Chicago at Northwestern University (B.Mus, M.Mus), where he learned with Frederick Hemke, and postgraduate study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, with Stephen Trier. Since making his London debut on the Park Lane Group series, he has performed as soloist at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room, British and World Saxophone Congresses, and many other venues in Britain and abroad. Kyle maintains an active career as a freelance musician across a wide range of chamber, orchestral, contemporary, and light music. Orchestral work has included concerts, tours, broadcasts, and CD recordings with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Rambert Dance Company, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Royal Opera House (Covent Garden), Music Theatre Wales, Garsington Opera, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and many others.

Kyle is lead saxophonist with Michael Law's Piccadilly Dance Orchestra, playing music from the American Songbook, mixed with early jazz arrangements, as well as songs by British contemporaries. Kyle has made several critically acclaimed recordings as a featured solo artist, exploring chamber repertoire for saxophone and other instruments, as well as music by contemporary composers, including Ian Stewart, Timothy Salter, John Carmichael, and Roderick Elms. He is a member of the chamber ensemble Counterpoise which has commissioned and premiered numerous works, performing in venues and festivals across the UK. Kyle is a saxophone professor at the Royal College of Music in London, Visiting Saxophone Consultant at Birmingham Conservatoire, and saxophone teacher at Royal Holloway, University of London. In recognition of his many achievements as a performer and teacher, Kyle was appointed to the honorary position of Vice-President of the Clarinet and Saxophone Society of Great Britain in 2016.

Iain Farrington
has a busy and diverse career as a pianist, organist, composer and arranger. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music, London and at Cambridge University. He has made numerous recordings, and has broadcast on BBC Television, Classic FM and BBC Radio 3. As a solo pianist, accompanist, chamber musician and organist, Iain has performed at all the major UK venues and abroad in the USA, Japan, Mexico, South Africa, Malaysia, Hong Kong and all across Europe. He has accompanied a number of the country's leading musicians, including Willard White, Bryn Terfel and Lesley Garrett. Iain played the piano at the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics with Rowan Atkinson, the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle, broadcast to a global audience of around a billion viewers. He has performed on numerous occasions at the BBC Proms, including acclaimed solo performances in 2007 on the Royal Albert Hall organ. ​

Iain has composed orchestral, choral and instrumental pieces and has arranged hundreds of works in many styles, including opera, orchestral, choral, African songs, cabaret, klezmer, jazz and pop. He has composed several orchestral works for the BBC Proms, including Beethoveniana in 2020, Gershwinicity in 2018, A Shipshape Shindig in 2017, and two pieces for the Wallace and Gromit Prom in 2012. With the poet, DJ and actor Craig Charles he has written three large-scale orchestral works based on traditional fairytales, titled Scary Fairy. His chamber orchestrations of the symphonic repertoire are regularly performed around the world and his organ arrangement of Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5 was performed at the Royal Wedding in 2011. In 2018, Iain performed a Mahler Piano Series in London, which featured his own solo piano arrangements of Mahler's symphonies, alongside songs and piano music from the period.

Booklet for Gershwinicity