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Mr. Ken Starrett
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The Noel Coward Society 49 W 68th St, Apt 1-RNew York, NY 10023212-877-4259email Ken
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What's On: West Coast
Nov 9, 2012 -
Feb 24, 2013
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Fallen Angels
Nov 16 - Dec 15, 2012
Theater Schmeater 1500 Summit Ave. Seattle, WA 98122 206-324-5801 brownpapertickets Directed by Corey McDaniel Jan 29 - Feb 24, 2013 Pasadena Playhouse 39 South El Molino Avenue Pasadena, CA 91101 626-356-7529 Pasadena Playhouse box office Directed by Art Manke
Present Laughter Nov 9 - Dec 15, 2012 Little Fish Theatre 777 S Centre St, San Pedro, CA 90731 310-512-6030 Little Fish tickets |
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 In Memoriam: Alan Farley (1936-2012)
With a heavy heart, I send news of the death of Alan Farley on Sunday. Through decades of radio broadcasts (more than 150 of them devoted to Noël Coward), Alan shared his extensive knowledge of Coward and his works. Last December marked his 30th annual broadcast in honor of Coward's birthday -- always a welcome treat for the holidays. In addition to his work in radio, Alan was a researcher and scholar, particularly well-versed in Coward's music; he is the co-producer (along with Dominic Vlasto) of The Noël Coward Music Index, a remarkable annotated catalogue of Coward's hundreds of compositions. In the October 23rd issue of the San Francisco Chronicle, Music Critic Joshua Kosman provided a touching obituary: SF Chronicle obituary . KALW, 91.7 FM, will broadcast a radio tribute to Alan on Thursday, October 25, 2012 at 11:00 AM PDT.
Alan's memorial service is still being planned. As soon as details are available, I'll send a follow-up note.
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Radio Tribute to Alan Farley
Thursday, October 25, 2012
11:00 AM PDT
KALW, 91.7 FM
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 | Alan Farley
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Rose Aguilar will host a one-hour show devoted to listeners' memories and stories of Alan: tune your radio to KALW or listen live online at kalw_listen live .
To contribute your thoughts or stories about Alan to this program, call in toll-free at 866-798-8255 during the show, or send email to kalw@kalw.org.
For more information, see:
City Time Zone Showtime San Francisco Pacific Daylight Time 11:00 AM
New York Eastern Daylight Time 2:00 PM
London British Summer Time 7:00 PM back to top |
The Noël Coward Music Index
Authors: Alan Farley and Dominic Vlasto
Web Designer: John Knowles
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Alan was particularly well versed in Coward's music; he is the co-producer (along with Dominic Vlasto) of The Noël Coward Music Index, a remarkable annotated catalogue of Coward's hundreds of compositions. Designer John Knowles has created an easily-navigated web site for this extensive work.
The NCMI lists alphabetically all of Coward's known musical titles, including music without lyrics. For each entry, Alan and Dominic painstakingly provide details on date, use, source, notes, and discography.
NCMI welcome page
A sample entry...
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Most of Ev'ry Day
Origin: 1934
Use: not linked to any show.
Source: Sep. Publ. (1934)
Notes
A sort of torch song. A declaration of love, certainly, for a desperately-missed ex-lover. And, thereby, an unusual song in the NC catalogue. It is also unusual in achieving publication as sheet-music despite not being linked to any exposure beyond ONR 08 and NCR 13. Clearly, it is a song which meant something to NC himself and which he made efforts to expose. Brian Rust notes in his The Complete Entertainment Discography from 1897 to 1942, Second Edition that Coward recorded it on 26 Oct 1934 (rejected) and then again on 29 October 1934 (issued).
It's a song with quite a sad, modal feeling, using some of the same whole-tone harmonic relationships which give a similar moody, shifting character to 'Half Caste Woman'. This shifting harmonic sense starts right at the beginning of the verse section ("Time makes a mess of things") and is also echoed in the very closing phrase of the whole piece. Indeed, overall it is a piece which seems to have some trouble fixing on a home key. The verse starts in Ab, shifts into Bb and then makes Bb the dominant lead to the refrain in Eb, which moves into Gb halfway through its second phrase.
The "middle eight" phrase starts in Ab minor, and what it does after that forms an extraordinary chromatic modulation back to Eb for the last phrase. All this means that there is an air of bewilderment and directionlessness, which carries and illuminates the lyrics very well. A sprightly little whole-tone "fill" between phrases in the verse section and a bar of consecutive semitonal chords are very precisely notated. (NC uses the latter also in the verse section of 'World Weary' on "buildings seem to grow so high".)
Discography
ONR 08: Fred Lathom + Jack Jackson orch. (25 Oct 1934)
NCR 13: acc. Carroll Gibbons (29 Oct 1934)
ONR 90: Steve Ross (1987)
ONR 22: Ann Hampton Callaway (1990)
ONR 05a: Steve Ross (2004)
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