Mike Batt has been and continues to be active in "straight" classical areas as well as all other points of the musical spectrum. This page explores his more "straight" work,- (he detests the term "serious" as it implies flippancy in other areas of music).
Mike Batt- Classical. ( Excerpt from BIOGRAPHY notes- see website button) He made his concert debut as a conductor at the Barbican with the LSO in 1984, with a programme including the Carmen Suites (Bizet), The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Dukas) and other light classics, and has since conducted the LSO, LPO and RPO in various programmes and/or recordings of well-known repertoire pieces such as The Planets Suite (Holst), Scheherezade (Rimsky Korsakov) and Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture (Tchaikovsky). In 1990, he was Music Director of the Melbourne Summer Music Festival, with the State Orchestra of Victoria.. Mike Batt- Classical. (Additional note by Irwin Slater) Since then, Mike has had a recurring and constant relationship with the "repertoire" classics as a conductor, in between his more pop-based and sometimes humorous work. His recording, in 1994 of Holst's "Planets" Suite for Large Orchestra,- plus Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance" March No 1 was the very first recording of that repertoire in the new 20 bit technology. The recording was made at Watford Town Hall- Mike's ultimate acoustic preference for classical recording (giving, as it does, a superb bass resonance combined with a rich warmth on the treble registers). The Abbey Road mobile recording unit was used for the recording, originally commissioned by Marshall Cavendish (Partworks) Ltd for use in the series "The Great Composers" but now owned by Mike and available via iTunes. The producer was Robert Matthew Walker, former editor of Music And Musicians magazine and former director of Classics for CBS and RCA records. Mike's relationship with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra has led to various collaborations. The most recent of these- in live concert terms- was the concert at Powderham Castle, for Classic FM,- on the night of the total eclipse of the sun last year. The open air concert featured various celestial repertoire including Richard Strauss: "Also Sprach Zarathustra", Johann Strauss "The Beautiful Blue Danube" (As used in Stanley Kubrick's film, "2001: A Space Odyssey"), Holst:"Jupiter" and "Uranus" from The Planets, and two movements from Berlioz: "Symphonie Fantastique". Mike"s own compositions- even for so called "commercial" projects, - are often classically conceived and performed from the outset. His scores for The Dreamstone" TV series, the movie "Keep The Aspidistra Flying" ("A Merry War" in the USA) and the TV series "Watership Down" all started life as Symphonic suites, which were later developed into the dramatic context of their film or TV application. Mike's concert and Classical works are published and librarised by Oxford University Press. Mike is very keen on his conducting, and enjoys enormously his relationship with and the work he does with orchestras. "When I was a kid of eleven, I was given an album by my grandmother.It was called "Music For Frustrated Conductors", says Mike. "It was things like Vaughan Williams "Fantasia on Greensleeves" with little cartoons showing how to conduct the pieces,- except that the cartoons were ridiculously simplistic. I read somewhere that Simon Rattle had the same album, but I don't know how true that is. Anyway, when my parents used to go out shopping on a Saturday morning, I would stack up all the dining room furniture into a great heap, put handwritten signs around, saying "violins", "horns" and so on, and conduct the furniture all morning! My favourite piece to conduct was Schubert's 9th Symphony, with Brahms 5th Symphony as a close second. The furniture used to enjoy playing that one, too. I could whistle them through from top to bottom, even now..." Mike says he finds composition and arranging a perfect complement to conducting. "If you know, after years of hard fought experience, how to get the brass and basses, for example, to underpin the bass moments of an orchestration, or you understand the way to allow a woodwind section or soloist to cut through the 90 piece accompaniment, it stands you in good stead to have an opinion on how to balance up a piece by Delius or Prokofiev" he says. "It also works in reverse. If you have had the experience of conducting the LSO at the Barbican or Albert Hall, and can feel the energy coming from the orchestration of the great masters, it must effect your own work as a composer or orchestrator." Recordings available through iTunes: RPO/BATT : Holst: "The Planets" and Elgar "Pomp and Circumstance March No 1" BATT: "The Dream Stone" Symphonic Suite and "A Merry War" Suite. |
