CHRISTMAS CONCERT LI VERPOOL STRI NG QUARTET - Liverpool String ...

LI VERPOOL
   ST R I N G
                       CHRISTMAS
 Q UA RT E T            CONCERT

           Liverpool String Quartet
       Matt Lammin & Friends (Voices)
     Mike *McGear McCartney (Narrator)

PROGRAMME

*Winter from The Four Seasons | A. Vivaldi

I.     Allegro non molto
II.    Largo
III.   Allegro

*Winter from “Four Seasons of Buenos Aires" | A. Piazzolla

*The Snowman | H. Blake
       Narrator: Mike *McGear McCartney
       Singers: Matt Lammin & Friends

*Last Christmas | Wham!

*The Christmas Song | Mel Tormé and Bob Wells

*Silent Night | Traditional

*Home Alone medley | Leontovych/Wilhousky & John
Williams

*Merry Christmas Everyone | Shakin’ Stevens

Liverpool String Quartet
Matt Lammin & Friends (Voices)
Mike *McGear McCartney (Narrator)

LIVERPOOL STRING QUARTET
        Róisín Walters | violin                 Daniel Sanxis | viola

            Sarah Hill | violin                Nick Byrne | cello

Since its formation in 2010, the Liverpool String Quartet has given
hundreds of concerts in the UK and Europe, to critical acclaim.

They have performed in venues throughout Liverpool, including St
George’s Hall, Liverpool Philharmonic’s Music Room and Liverpool
Cathedral, and have toured Spain and Catalunya twelve times, opening the
prestigious Mahon music festival in 2012, and playing in venues such as
the Cathedral of Pamplona, and the Teatro Principal de Valls.

In 2015 the quartet gave the world premiere of the full string quartet
version of The Snowman, which was arranged for the quartet by its
composer Howard Blake. They have recorded this on CD, with Sir Ken
Dodd narrating, along with a quartet version of the children’s classic Peter
and the Wolf.

In 2018 the Liverpool String Quartet gave a concert of Beatles music,
narrated by Hunter Davies, which was a finalist in Carlisle Living
Magazine’s ‘Event of the Year’ award.

As well as Ken Dodd and Hunter Davies, the quartet have collaborated
with many other celebrated musicians and artists, including pianist Martin
Roscoe, DJ Spooky, and James Clark, former leader of the RLPO.

The quartet has many concerts planned for 2021 and 2022, including
performances at Liverpool Philharmonic’s Music Room, and tours to
Spain and to Ireland for the National String Quartet Foundation’s 2021
season.

‘The Liverpool string quartet brought beauty and skill to this piece, which
demanded some incredible, technical solos...this piece really proves that
Liverpool boasts genius in the orchestra’s string section’ (artinLiverpool.com)

‘The setting is divine, the sound sublime - this is like angel wings fluttering
past my ears...The music speaks to me, it is rapturous and I am melting into
my seat..the quartet is in flight’ (Liverpool-live.tv)

‘Impeccable playing by the Liverpool String Quartet effortlessly carries the
sentiments embodied in the musical sections’ (catalystmedia.org.uk)

‘Thank you for that amazing concert..Carlisle people are somewhat reserved
in concerts, and I’ve never seen a standing ovation in hundreds of them over
the past 40 years, so you must have been good!’ (Borderlines Carlisle)

MATT LAMMIN
Matt Lammin is a musical director, arranger and vocalist based in
Merseyside. He runs vocal groups in many guises and the groups he
directs have backed high profile artists, held residencies at local
venues, competed in live BBC television competitions and
performed across the country. Over one hundred of his vocal
arrangements are published online and a few years ago he was
commissioned to compose a vocal piece for a female vocal group in
Pennsylvania during which he was flown over to guest-conduct the            Matt Lammin & Friends
choir for the premiere of his piece.

As a vocalist with Sense of Sound Singers, he has performed across Europe and provided backing
vocals for artists such as Take That, Ringo Starr and Pink Floyd as well as backing Russell Watson on a
19-date tour of the UK.

For this gig at the Bombed Out Church, he has brought together three singers from the White Star Choir
who he directed for their residency at the Titanic Hotel last Christmas: Amy Chalmers, Molly Daniel
and Jeanette Davies, who are all singers and musicians in their own right and perform professionally
across Merseyside.

MIKE *McGEAR McCARTNEY
Peter Michael “Mike” McCartney (born 7 January
1944), known professionally as Mike McGear, is
a British performing artist and rock photographer
and the younger brother of Paul McCartney. He
attended the Liverpool Institute two years behind
his brother.
Michael and his brother Paul (born 18 June 1942)
were both born in the Walton General Hospital in
Liverpool, where their mother, Mary McCartney, had previously worked as a nursing sister in
charge of the maternity ward. Michael was not enrolled in a Catholic school as his father, Jim
McCartney, believed that they leaned too much towards religion instead of education. At age
17, McCartney started his first job at ‘Jackson’s the Tailors’ in Ranelagh Street, Liverpool. The
year after he took an apprenticeship at ‘Andre Bernard’, a hairdresser for ladies in the same
street.

Musical Career
At the time the Beatles became successful, Mike McCartney was working as an apprentice
hairdresser. However, he was also a member of the Liverpool comedy-poetry-music group the
Scaffold, which included Roger McGough and John Gorman and had formed in 1962 (the year
of the Beatles’ first hit). McCartney decided to use a stage name, so as not to appear to be
riding his brother’s coattails. After first dubbing himself “Mike Blank”,[5] he settled on “Mike
McGear”, “gear” being the Liverpudlian equivalent of “fab”. The band was subsequently
signed to Parlophone.
The Scaffold recorded a number of UK hit singles between 1966 and 1974, the most successful
being the 1968 Christmas number one single, “Lily the Pink”. McCartney composed the band’s
next biggest hit, 1967’s “Thank U Very Much”. In 1968, he and McGough released a “duo”
album (McGough & McGear) that included the usual Scaffold mix of lyrics, poems, and
comedy. The Scaffold ended up hosting a TV program, which limited the musical portion of
their career, and they were dropped by Parlophone. McCartney then signed to Island Records
and released a solo musical album entitled Woman in 1972—About this sound sample
(help·info)—which again included many tracks co-written with McGough, and the Scaffold
subsequently released their own album on the label, Fresh Liver.
The Scaffold then added several other members and released two albums on Island in 1973 as
Grimms (an acronym for Gorman-Roberts-Innes-McGear-McGough-Stanshall). However,
McCartney quit Grimms after the second album due to tension between himself and one of the
poets added to the group.

McCartney then signed to Warner Bros. Records and in 1974 released his second “serious”
musical album, McGear, in which he collaborated with his brother Paul and Paul’s band Wings.
Although four singles were released from these sessions, only “Leave It” enjoyed any moderate
chart success (No. 36 UK). However, also recorded during McCartney’s sessions with Wings was
a Scaffold “reunion” song, “Liverpool Lou”, which became the Scaffold’s last top-ten hit. This
led to the group’s re-formation in 1974, and they recorded and performed together through 1977.

Individually, McCartney released a few more singles. His final release, while still using the name
Mike McGear, was the 1981 release “No Lar Di Dar (Is Lady Di)”. This was a satirical tribute to
Lady Diana Spencer, released at the time of her wedding to Prince Charles.
In the 1980s, after retiring from music, Mike McCartney decided to end his use of the “McGear”
pseudonym and revert to use of his family name.
Photographic Career

McCartney was a photographer during his entire musical career, and has continued with
photography since then. Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein nicknamed him “Flash Harry” in the
early 1960s because he was always taking pictures with a flash gun.
He has published books of pictures that he took of the Beatles backstage and on tour, and he
recently brought out a limited edition book of photos he took spontaneously backstage at Live8.
In 2005, McCartney premiered and exhibited a collection of photographs that he had taken in the
1960s, called “Mike McCartney’s Liverpool Life”, both in Liverpool and other venues, such as
The Provincial Museum of Alberta. In addition, an exhibition book was published of the
collection.

He also took the cover photograph for Paul McCartney’s 2005 solo album Chaos and Creation in
the Backyard.