Classic Broadway music
The MPO pays tribute to composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein, writes Dennis Chua
Stephanie Van Driesen
Razif Hashim
THE Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra will be spellbinding audiences in concerts themed The Best Of Rodgers And Ham
merstein at 8.30pm tomorrow and 3pm on Sunday.
Taking place at Dewan Filharmonik Petronas, KLCC, Kuala Lumpur, the concerts will see the MPO perform great Broadway music from the partnership of composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein.
Both men collaborated on 11 popular musicals of all time and have earned themselves 34 Tony Awards, 15 Academy Awards and two Grammy Awards. The orchestra will play Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin’ and
People Will Say We’re In Love taken from the duo’s first collaboration Oklahoma!, which was premiered on Broadway in 1943 and was adapted into a hit film in 1955.
It will also perform songs from the popular musical South Pacific such as My Girl
Back Home, Younger Than Springtime and Some Enchanted Evening.
Premiered on Broadway in 1949, the story deals with serious themes, including racial prejudice and social acceptance. It was adapted into a hit film in 1958 and released as a telemovie in 2001.
Also included in the MPO’s repertoire list are beautiful songs from the duo’s last musical together, The Sound Of Music. The songs are The Hills Are Alive, Sixteen
Going On Seventeen and Climb Every Mountain.
Its Broadway premiere took place in 1959, nine months before Hammerstein died of cancer. Its 1965 film version won five Academy Awards in 1966, including Best Picture.
Besides the aforementioned musicals, the MPO will also present the duo’s masterpieces taken from musicals such as Cinderella, The King And I, and Carousel.
The orchestra will be led by its resident conductor Harish Shankar. The concerts will feature soprano Janet Lee, alto Samantha De Lune, bass Chi Hoe Mak, and tenors Izen Kong and Peter Ong.