LI VER POOL CHRISTMAS STRI NG QUARTET 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 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, and 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 became successful, Mike McCartney was working as an apprentice hairdresser. However, he was also a member of the Liverpool comedy-poetry-music group , 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 . 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” (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 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 on Island in 1973 as (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 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.