John Hardy's Blue Letters from Tanganyika
A "powerfully cinematic" (South Wales Echo) orchestral portrait of wild East Africa.
• Listen now at Spotify or iTunes.
| Buy online: John Hardy - Blue Letters from Tanganyika Grant Llewellyn and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales | |||||||
| CD | Album £7.49 | Postage & packing from £2.00. See details | |||||
| MP3 | Album £4.99 | includes all 4 tracks plus PDF booklet |  |
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| Single tracks | 1 | Arrival at the Lake | 6:06 | |
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| £1.49 each | 2 | Travel on the Lake | 3:39 | |
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| 3 | Twilight on the Lake | 5:24 | |
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| 4 | On Safari | 2:40 | |
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| Album duration 17:49 25p from each album sale will be donated to health and education charities working in Tanzania. | |||||||
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Blue Letters from Tanganyika is a bright, energetic piece inspired by the adventures of a young woman travelling in East Africa: John's mother.
During nearly 2 years spent overseeing schools in an area of Tanzania the size of England, she wrote over 70 letters home describing wild animal encounters, exotic landscapes and countless tales of danger, bravery and the ‘everyday life’ of a totally unfamiliar environment.
Forty years after her return, her son John Hardy was commissioned by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales to write this piece, which they performed at 5 concerts and broadcast several times on BBC Radio 3.
Full of exuberant African colours, this beautiful recording by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Grant Llewellyn captures an exotic world of sweltering wild terrain, dangerous journeys through lion country and the calm of twilight over the great lake.
• Listen now at Spotify or iTunes.
"The rhythmically charged, open and immediately engaging music is bright and colourful while still managing to evoke the African landscape"
Pwyll ap Siôn, Gramophone Magazine
"Powerfully cinematic"
Gavin Allen, South Wales Echo
4 stars **** "Four colourful, finely crafted movements"
Phil Sommerich, Classical Music Magazine
'masterpiece of creation... an extraordinary piece of history'
Roy Noble, BBC Radio Wales
"Colourful, filmic, and open to pleasurable listening at a single sitting"
Howard Smith, Music & Vision
"The tears fell with the pleasure of hearing it again"
audience member
On other music by John Hardy:
"Unique", "utterly engrossing", "fluent, intense outpouring"
Guardian
"Witty", "evocative"
Independent
"Gripping and intensely theatrical"
Opera Now
"Energetic, instinctive"
The Times
"Beautiful"
BBC Arts & Entertainment Review 2008
"Powerful"
Evening Standard
Visit www.JohnHardyMusic.com to hear more about the composer.
