Category: Music
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Ballet Negres Anniversary
80 years ago on Monday June 24th, Ballet Negres, Europe’s first Black ballet company, performed live on BBC Television. This ground-breaking and innovative company was formed in London in 1946 by Jamaicans Berto Pasuka and Richie Riley, with dancers from the Caribbean, Africa and Britain. There were some non-black members of the company including my…
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Leonard Salzedo caprices and variations
Eleven Caprices for Two Violins The video of violinists Ryo Koyama and Maho Harada playing Leonard Salzedo’s Eleven Caprices for Two Violins is now live on YouTube and also features on the Leonard Salzedo website and and on Leonard Salzedo Society’s Instagram It is a wonderful piece, written in 1951, showcasing many different styles, and…
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Leonard Salzedo 24/9/21 – 6/5/00
On this, the 26th anniversary of my father Leonard Salzedo’s death, I am again celebrating friendship. As I said in the New Year post, along with the quality of my father’s music, it is friendship that keeps the Leonard Salzedo Society going. For more information, you can go to this website which includes a catalogue…
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Happy New Year from the Leonard Salzedo Society: a post that celebrates friendship
It is friendship that keeps the Leonard Salzedo Society together. This heartening thought came to me as I looked around the Society AGM in November. A network of friends in Nottingham, a wider network of friends in other parts of the country, and last but not least, cousins on both sides of the family who…
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Leonard Salzedo Birthday Stories
Celebrating 24th September – the birthday of my father Leonard Salzedo – with some stories from his autobiography: “At eleven o’clock on the morning of Saturday 24th September 1921 I was born at a small private nursing home at 46 Amhurst Park, Stamford Hill, in North London. It was a large Victorian House and has…
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The Wedding of Leonard Salzedo and Pat Clover: 30th May 1945
From Leonard’s autobiography ‘At 3pm on the afternoon of Wednesday 30th May, Patricia Mary Clover and I were married at the Register Office in Hackney Town Hall, almost exactly twenty-five years after my parents had been married in the same place. After the ceremony we returned to Stamford Hill, where I lived with my father,…
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103 years!
24th September 2024 is 103 years since my father Leonard Salzedo was born. His music is still being played! And the Leonard Salzedo Society is constantly promoting new ventures and celebrating old ones. Harpsichord Concerto Here is a video of the June 2024 Palo Alto concert of Leonard’s Harpsichord Concerto played by my cousin Jonathan…
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Two Concerti performed in June
Fantastic! That’s how I felt about the concerts of Salzedo music I attended in June. Viola Concerto in Greenwich Richard Crabtree, violist, and Irina Lyakhovskaya, pianist, played the Viola Concerto in the stunning venue of the Old Royal Chapel, Greenwich. Richard, for whom the Concerto was written, is a longtime friend and supporter of Leonard…
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A chance meeting around Easter changes two lives forever
Leonard writes: “One Saturday afternoon in March 1945 I received a telephone call from a Basil Ashmore who asked me to come and see him later that afternoon at the Gateway Theatre, Notting Hill Gate. When I arrived the young lady I met didn’t seem very pleased to see me but said she would call…
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Christmas 2023
Looking for Christmas memories in my father’s autobiography, I am struck not by the happier ones but by the wartime ones with their mixture of horror and hope. 1944 – Flying Bombs In September 1944, the V2s began to hit London. Called Flying Bombs, they were long range ballistic missiles. On a terrifying night, Leonard…
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