Red-Riding-Hood (Out of the Shadows Festival, Sydney)
Video recording of Red-Riding-Hood, produced for the Sydney Out of the Shadows Festival.
Red-Riding-Hood (1938/1949)
The musical sketches for Red-Riding-Hood were completed by Wilhelm Grosz in December 1938, and mark his second and final collaboration with the popular English children's author Rose Fyleman. During this period, Grosz was using the pen name Will Grant, and it was under this name that he and Fyleman approached Oxford Music to license the composition. Four months after the completion and submission of sketches, Oxford Music sent the composer the first proofs on 9 August 1939 to his address in London - but at the time, Grosz and his wife were in the United States, scoping out possibilities for future work in the film industry. The proofs are now lost, but the full score was completed by an in-house arranger, Roy Douglas for publication in 1949, and premiered on BBC-TV in 1950 by the Hogarth Puppets. Falling out of favour (probably because of its anachronistic script), the work was last performed in 1980, making this performance the first in 37 years.
Red-Riding-Hood was performed in Sydney by members of the Sydney Children's Choir, accompanied by the SSO Fellows. The show was directed by Christopher Harley, with chorus-master and stage manager Atalya Masi, and accompanist and assistant chorus-master Owen Elsley.
Costume design was by Aleisa Jelbart, with choreography by Ana Maria Belo.
The show was conducted by Joseph Toltz, who was also producer.
These performances of Red-Riding-Hood by Will Grant (arranged by Roy Douglas) are given by permission of Hal Leonard Australia Pty Ltd, exclusive agents for Oxford University Press of Oxford.