London Bridge: Live in Zurich 1990 Mike Westbrook, Kate Westbrook, Mike Westbrook Orchestra and Docklands Sinfonietta

• 1 London Bridge is Broken Down (Live) 12:43
• 2 Wenceslas Square (Live) 29:00
• 3 Nähe des Geliebten (Live) 07:42
• 4 Traurig aber falsch (Live) 17:38
• 5 Ein Vogel (Live) 08:05
• 6 Viennese Waltz (Live) 05:49
• 7 Für Sie (Live) 23:09
• 8 Blighters (Live) 05:09
• 9 Les Morts (Live) 05:17
• 10 Picardie (Live) 15:56
• 11 Une Fenêtre (Live) 11:33
• 12 Aucassin et Nicolette (Live) 04:22
• Total Runtime 02:26:23

Info for London Bridge: Live in Zurich 1990

London Bridge is Broken Down is a two-and-a-half-hour composition for voice, jazz orchestra and chamber orchestra, some fifty performers.

A collaboration between composer Mike Westbrook and vocalist/librettist Kate Westbrook, the work was inspired by travelling and performing in the mid 1980’s through a Europe at that time divided by the Berlin Wall ‘our personal map of Europe’. It includes settings of poetry in French, German and English. Its five movements are entitled London Bridge, Wenceslas Square, Berlin Wall, Vienna and Picardie.

First performed in Amiens in 1987 with Le Sinfonietta de Picardie, London Bridge was recorded at the Pathé Marconi Studios in Paris and released on Virgin Venture.

The UK premiere of London Bridge took place on November 9th 1990 at St Anne’s Church, Limehouse in the Jazz Lunarcy Festival and involved the Docklands Sinfonietta, directed by Rupert Bond. The following day the ensemble flew to Switzerland to appear in the Zürich International Jazz Festival. The new album London Bridge Live in Zürich 1990 is taken from the ‘live’ recording of that concert made for SRF radio. This was to be the last time that London Bridge was performed in its entirety.

In 1989 the Berlin Wall had been taken down. Europe’s conflicted history is not easily swept away. Richard Williams wrote of London Bridge ‘we are left in little doubt that here is a lament for the endless folly to which man is heir, pierced by the knowledge of his curious resilience and half-buried instinct for good’.

"A dense, haunting contemplation of irony, ambiguity, courage and love" (Chris Parker in The Wire)

Kate Westbrook, voice
Mike Westbrook, piano
Docklands Sinfonietta
Rupert Bond, conductor

Mike Westbrook
Mike's BiographyBorn in High Wycombe in 1936, Mike Westbrook grew up in Torquay and was educated at Kelly College, Tavistock. He formed his first band while studying painting in Plymouth in 1958, moving to London in the early 1960s. He has led and composed for a succession of groups, notably his 1960s Sextet and Concert Band, his Brass Band, formed in the mid 70s, the jazz rock group Solid Gold Cadillac and the Mike Westbrook Orchestra. He has toured extensively throughout Europe, and as far afield as Australia and the Far East, Canada and New York. He has directed performances of his work with big bands in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, France, Italy, Slovenia, Switzerland and Australia. He has broadcast on radio and TV in many countries, and made over 50 albums. ...

Kate Westbrook
was born in Britain but spent much of her childhood and early adult life in North America. She studied Fine Art at University. The first solo show of her paintings was at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California, in 1965. On returning to the UK she continued to exhibit her work and she taught at Leeds College of Art, at that time in the forefront of experimental theatre and performance art. Kate WestbrookKate's musical career began in the mid '70s when she joined the Mike Westbrook Brass Band, and gave up teaching to concentrate on the dual career of painter and musician.

Kate has toured widely throughout the UK and Europe, and as far afield as Canada, Australia and the Far East. She has broadcast on radio and TV and has recorded more than 30 albums. Her vocal range embraces Contemporary Music, Opera, Cabaret, as well as Jazz and Popular Song. As a lyricist and songwriter she has worked with composers in the worlds of jazz and contemporary music, notably with her group The Skirmishers in the album Cuff Clout, a neoteric music-hall. Kate works with the contemporary classical group Lavolta, with The Uncommon Orchestra, The Westbrook Blake and with Westbrook & Company in Paintbox Jane, a jazz cabaret about the painter Raoul Dufy. Kate has formed a new 7–piece group, The Granite Band to record and perform her latest work, GRANITE, inspired by Dartmoor and its granite quarries. ...

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