A Viennese Christmas by the New Sigmund Romberg Orchestra & Soloists

America's First Touring 
Pops Orchestra:
A Viennese Christmas
http://www.artistsofmainstage.com/shows/viennese/viennese.html
:
"Cormier's arrangements are facile and colorful; his orchestra is capable and the choreography of his gifted quartet of singers brought humor as well as musical richness to the ensemble."
-The Times

"The New Sigmund Romberg Orchestra ... opened our holiday season to standing ovations after exhibiting the orchestra's masterful interpretation of traditional holiday music and selections from Romberg's repertoire."
- Executive Director, Maxwell C. King Center For The Performing Arts

About Sigmund Romberg
Sigmund Romberg (1887-1951) was Hungary's gift to melody-loving Americans with a legacy of more than 2,000 songs and 78 musical plays. Born into a cultured family, Romberg's natural talent surfaced early. Young Sigmund learned to play the piano at age six, the violin at eight, and within a few years he was familiar with almost every orchestral instrument.
He was headed for a career in civil engineering, with music but an avocation, when as a student and soldier in Vienna he was befriended by the famous operetta composer Franz Lehar (Merry Widow). Thanks to Lehar's influence and a brief period of formal musical education, Romberg decided to become a professional musician.
He ventured to New York in 1909 and soon worked as a pianist on the restaurant circuit until 1914 when some of his piano compositions came to the attention of Broadway producer J. J. Shubert who hired Romberg to compose for his Winter Garden revues. In a five-year period, Romberg contributed to 16 revues, musical plays and operettas for the Shubert organization.
It was not until after World War I that Romberg's career as a composer of operettas with Viennese flavor really bloomed. During the 1920s he wrote Blossom Time, The Student Prince, The Desert Song Rosalie and The New Moon for the Shuberts, Florenz Ziegfeld and other legendary producers. Among his friends and musical collaborators were Al Jolson, Oscar Hammerstein II, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Gus Kahn and Irving Berlin.
With the advent of sound films, Romberg moved to Hollywood in 1929 and composed four movie musicals. More than a half dozen film adaptations of his operettas were released between 1929 and 1954.
Radio opened up a third field for Romberg. Throughout the '30s and '40s he hosted weekly programs that included his own songs and works by other popular composers, and introduced many young singers who would later find fame in opera and concert halls.
In early 1940 Romberg organized his first concert tour, and by 1944 the endeavor had grown to include 277 performances in 128 cities. The Sigmund Romberg Orchestra not only played the music of Broadway, but also the "popular classics", including movements from famous symphonies, overtures and arias from operas. Despite his frenetic schedule during the period, he found time to compose works for the New York musical theatre including Up In Central Park and My Romance.
Known to his friends as "Romy", Romberg was a congenial, fun-loving man known for his appreciation of good food and drink. He was a tireless composer, working on a new musical at the time of his death in 1951.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• mainstage
• terry
• kippenberger
• artistsofmainstage.com
• vienna
• christmas
• show
• shows
• sigmund
• romberg

[utubecritiquer]

More info can be found here: artistsofmainstage (dot) com/shows/viennese/viennese.ht­ml

[Astraea52]

Thanks for posting this; does the orchestra have their own website with a schedule posted?