Sun 15 December 2024 7:30pm

Down for the Count Orchestra

at The Stoller Hall, Manchester

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What's On / Manchester / Music

Swing Into Christmas

Please note: Info provided by the Event Organiser

Celebrate the festive season in style with the vocalists and instrumentalists of the Down for the Count Orchestra, as they return to The Stoller Hall for their annual festive extravaganza – this time with matinee and evening performances!

This is a Christmas celebration like no other, as Down for the Count recreate the music of Nat ‘King’ Cole, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra and many more in a luscious 30-piece orchestral setting evoking the sounds of the great Capitol Studios recordings.?

Expect to hear faithful recreations of the best music of the swing era including I’ve Got You Under My Skin, New York New York and ‘S Wonderful, alongside original arrangements of jazz and festive standards written by principal conductor Mike Paul-Smith and arranger Simon Joyner including Winter Wonderland and It’s Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas.

Down for the Count Orchestra

The Down for the Count Orchestra is a vintage orchestra which performs the music of Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Nat 'King' Cole, Ella Fitzgerald and many more. The Down for the Count Orchestra is our largest line-up, and is an expanded version of our All-Stars Band - featuring a larger horn and rhythm section, and a luscious string section. The result has been described by DownBeat magazine as "a sonic ride back to the sounds of Capitol Studios in the 1950s" - and a recent review of our tour said "you won't find a better interpretation of these golden tunes anywhere in the UK right now" (Stage Reviews). The Orchestra performs faithful transcriptions of some of the greatest hits of the Swing Era, taking its main inspiration from the Capitol Studios recordings that bought Frank Sinatra, Nat 'King' Cole and Peggy Lee to worldwide fame, and the influential Ella Fitzgerald "Songbook" sessions, masterminded by Norman Granz. Our show also explores the various ways jazz and swing musicians have involved strings in their music - so you might see and hear excerpts from the Charlie Parker With Strings albums, or recreations of classic tunes from the Tommy Dorsey or Harry James big bands of the 1940s (both of which involved strings). We also breathe new life into jazz standards, with original arrangements and orchestrations written by our principal conductor Mike Paul-Smith and associate musical director Simon Joyner. Above all, every song is performed with love and respect for the original artists, and the collective friendship of the musicians on stage rubs off on audiences who return to see the Orchestra over and over again.

See Down for the Count Orchestra tour dates