West End celebrities will join the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra for "The Great American Songbook" at Thailand Cultural Centre's Main Hall, Ratchadaphisek Road, on Wednesday at 8pm.
Emma Williams. Bangkok Symphony Orchestra Foundation
The concert will feature star vocalists Emma Williams and Ashley Day from London's theatreland, who will interpret anew for Bangkok's musical aficionados the timeless gems from the most revered songwriters in 20th century American popular culture.
The programme will start with Girl Crazy Overture by George Gershwin who fronts the parade of genius creative talents who contributed a prodigious repertoire of immortal hit songs for stage and screen between the 1920s and 1950s on New York's Broadway and in Hollywood's movie studios.
Cole Porter's I Get A Kick Out Of You from 1934's Anything Goes will be Day's first solo spot, with Williams rejoining him for Irving Berlin standard, Let's Face The Music And Dance from the 1936 movie Follow The Fleet.
She will also sing Gershwin's alluring tune The Man I Love, after which Day will return for a duet version of the same composer's Fascinatin' Rhythm. The repertoire also includes love songs by Kurt Weill, Rogers and Hart, Jerome Kern and Stephen Sondheim.
Day trained at the National Youth Music Theatre. His career highlights include the role of Liquorice Man in Matthew Bourne's acclaimed Nutcracker production at Sadler's Well, London. He also has sung on the original cast albums of the Broadway plays The Wizard Of Oz and Evita.
Williams played leading lady Truly Scrumptious in the original West End production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the London Palladium, winning the Arts Correspondent Award for Best Newcomer. She has been nominated for a prestigious Olivier Award on no less than four occasions.
Returning to lead the orchestra will be celebrated British musical director Martin Yates who, over the past two decades, has conducted at several major opera houses in Helsinki, Stockholm, Oslo, Rome, Tokyo and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
Tickets cost 500, 1,000, 1,500, 2,000 and 2,500 (half prices for students) and can be purchased from Thai Ticket Major outlets (visit www.thaiticketmajor.com or call 02-262-3456).
Visit www.bangkoksymphony.org.
Ashley Day. photos courtesy of Bangkok Symphony Orchestra Foundation
Martin Yates. Bangkok Symphony Orchestra Foundation
