Bernard J. Taylor

b. 16 Dec 1944, Cape City, South Africa. A flexible and prolific author of effective, romantic musicals because the past due 80s, Taylor’s early musical likes ranged from rock and roll ‘n’ roll towards the functions of the fantastic theater songwriters. Taylor’s just formal musical education emerged when he spent a season in the South African Military. At the Military’s musical college, he learnt to learn music, and play flute and piccolo. After building himself as an arts journalist, he transferred to Britain in 1969. Struggling to break right into the globe of theater, he worked being a article writer and editor for the Shell Essential oil Company for a lot more than a decade. His initial musical present, Neighbours And Fans, that he composed both music and lyrics, didn’t arouse any curiosity also from amateur dramatic groupings, so he created it himself on the Oast Theater, Tonbridge, in 1987. Though it attracted a great deal of interest and favourable response, Taylor made a decision to reject it towards making a musical predicated on a universally known tale. He chosen Emily Brontë’s traditional Wuthering Heights, composing the music, and collaborating over the lyrics with Eric Vickers. An idea album premiered in 1991 with a fantastic ensemble, including a previous Phantom FROM THE Opera, Dave Willetts, as Heathcliff, opera diva Lesley Garrett (Cathy Earnshaw), Bonnie Langford (Isabella Linton), Clive Carter (Hindley Earnshaw), Sharon Campbell (Ellen ‘Nellie’ Dean) and Adam Staddon (Edgar Linton). The passionate, sweeping score included several interesting melodies, specially the impassioned ‘I PARTICIPATE IN The Globe’. Endorsed from the Brontë Culture, Wuthering Heights was beset by contractual problems, but ultimately received its globe premiere in Holland. Around once, two even more musical adaptations of Brontë’s saga had been on the planks in little off-off Broadway locations, as the long-awaited Heathcliff, starring UK pop celebrity Cliff Richard, was still in the offing. Meanwhile, Taylor converted his focus on something completely different. Achievement! was a backstage music, loosely predicated on Faust, and occur NY. Peppered with parody and pastiche, with extra lyrics by Vivian Wadham, its normal, and frequently cynical, view from the fluctuations of showbusiness was along with a jazzy and occasionally tender rating, with Claire Moore, Lon Satton, Kathryn Evans, Jessica Martin and Maurice Clarke developing the CD solid. By enough time Achievement! produced its debut in the Civic Theater, Rotherham, in Sept 1995, Taylor got returned towards the classics, by means of Jane Austen’s Satisfaction And Prejudice. With Claire Moore as Elizabeth Bennet and Peter Karrie in the function of Darcy, the idea album also highlighted Homosexual Soper, Janet Mooney, Adam Staddon and Christopher Biggins as Mr. Collins. Stand-out monitors were regarded as ‘Through The Eye Of A Kid’, ‘Great Mating’ and ‘Give thanks to God They’re Wedded’. Satisfaction And Prejudice was presented to US viewers, filled with five brand-new songs, by the general public Theater Firm of Peoria, Illinois, in January 1995. Taylor’s musical interpretation from the Austen book was regarded as nearer to its resource compared to the 1959 Broadway edition, First Impressions (Austen’s unique name for the publication), which starred Hermione Gingold. In immediate contrast towards the subtleties of Satisfaction And Prejudice, Taylor’s Nosferatu: The Vampire (lyrics with Eric Vickers) demonstrated a haunting, sombre affair. It had been predicated on the silent black-and-white film from the Dracula story from the German movie director F.W. Murnau. Prominent in its sung-through rating was the starting ‘Wild Chat Of Vampires’, along with mystical and unsettling products such as for example ‘And Sheep Shall Not really Safely Graze’, ‘Worms PREY ON My Brains’, ‘Dispatch Of The Lifeless’, ‘Blasphemy’ and ‘Someplace At The Sides Of Creation’. Once more, the album solid was led by Claire Moore (as Mina) and Peter Karrie (as Nosferatu), backed by Mario Frangoulis, Tag Wynter, Barry Adam, Annalene Beechey and Simon Burke. The globe premiere was staged on the Madison Theater, Illinois, in Sept 1995, as well as the display had its initial European performances per month afterwards in Eastbourne. Both productions had been very well received. Having attained considerable success along with his adaptations of Brontë and Austen, Taylor do what other composers, notably Cole Porter (Kiss Me, Kate), and Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim (Western world Side Tale), had completed before him – appeared to the functions of William Shakespeare. In cases like this it had been the bard’s Very much Ado About Nothing at all, abbreviated to Very much Ado (extra lyrics: Vickers), that arrived set for the Taylor treatment. Once more, there is a stellar Compact disc cast, including Paul McGann (Benedick), Claire Moore (Beatrice), Simon Burke (Claudio), Janet Mooney (Hero), Barry Wayne (Leonato), David Pendelbury (Dogberey) and Peter Karrie (Don John). Once more, Taylor’s skill on paper convincing period music was obvious in songs such as for example ‘If I POSSIBLY COULD Write A Sonnet’, ‘I’ll By no means Love Once again’, ‘The Sweetest Kiss’, ‘Right now I Listen to Symphonies’, and ‘This Unusual Affliction Called Like’, aswell as the funny ‘The Officers FROM THE View’ and ‘By no means Satisfied’. As the 90s drew to a detailed, Taylor, in cooperation with orchestrator Gareth Cost, attempted ‘to portray a number of the essential advancements in the progress of civilization within the last 1, 000 years’ via his Millennium Suite. Released on Compact disc and performed with the Polish Condition Philharmonic Orchestra of Latowice, carried out by Jerzy Swoboda, the collection comprised ‘The Delivery Of Chivalry’, ‘The Age group Of Oppression’, ‘The Enlightenment’, ‘The Street To Democracy’ and ‘The Triumph Of Democracy’. The climax from the programme was included with ‘Victory Overture’, a special event of the finish of World Battle II. After offering on nearly all Taylor’s idea albums, Claire Moore, that has starred in the Western End in displays such as AREAS OF Love as well as the Phantom FROM THE Opera, released the single albums Songs IN THE Musicals Of Bernard J. Taylor and Kid Of THE PLANET EARTH. The last mentioned comprised Taylor compositions, aside from John Lennon’s ‘Visualize’.