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Fiery Angel Entertainment and Senbla Present
The Mult-Million Selling,
Multi-Award-Winning, Iconic Album
Mike Oldfield’s
Tubular Bells
The 50th Anniversary
Celebration
UK Tour
16th
February Gateshead Sage Tickets: https://ticketmaster-uk.tm7559.net/QOqrDz
18th March Stockton Globe – Tickets: https://prf.hn/l/OVkMmVW
To celebrate next
year’s 50th anniversary of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, the
multi-million-selling and multi-award-winning album will be performed live in
concert for a celebratory UK tour.
Part of the
fabric of popular culture, Tubular Bells is world-renowned as one of the most
celebrated examples of music in film for its soundtracking of horror classic
The Exorcist. Its legacy was cemented with Oldfield’s performance of the
album’s main theme at the iconic London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony, one of
the rare performances of the project he has given.
Tubular Bells The 50th Anniversary Celebration will feature an
expansive live group, conducted and arranged by Oldfield’s long-term
collaborator Robin Smith. It will see Tubular Bells performed in full, along
with further Oldfield compositions, touring across the UK beginning at
Cardiff’s St David’s Hall on 3rd February, right through until the
end of March.
A version of the
show premiered at Royal Festival Hall on the Southbank in London last year,
with The Times calling it ‘… a slick presentation of Tubular Bells at 50’, and
the Mail on Sunday commenting ‘… the bells do the business’.
Tubular Bells,
created in 1971 and released in 1973, was the debut studio album
by English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and songwriter Mike Oldfield. At
just 17 years old when he started composing the music, Oldfield recorded and
played almost all the instruments on the album, gained worldwide recognition
when the opening theme was used for the soundtrack of the horror film, The
Exorcist and went on to become the highest selling instrumental album of all
time.
A bold and
progressive fusion, Tubular Bells is a journey through classical, jazz,
folk, progressive rock, and electronica and went on to win a Grammy for Best
Instrumental Composition in 1974.
Robin Smith,
conductor of the show, was completely mesmerised by Tubular Bells the moment he
heard it. He was educated at the Royal Grammar School High Wycombe and then
studied Composition at the Royal College of Music. He spent several years
working as a piano/keyboard player in Africa, the Caribbean, USA, and Europe
before coming back to UK to join National Youth Jazz Orchestra. He quickly
became the principal pianist and spent most of his free time composing new jazz
compositions.
Smith has
collaborated with Mike Oldfield for over 30 years, with performances of Tubular
Bells including at Edinburgh Castle, and also the 2012 Olympic Games Opening
Ceremony.
On the tour,
Smith says: “Along with the
musicians, I'm really thrilled to be offering this beautiful re-imagined
version of Tubular Bells to a wider audience up and down the country. It was
premiered at the Royal Festival Hall in August 2021 to great acclaim, as an
early celebration of Mike Oldfield’s stunning work - so to be touring the UK in
the 50th year is a huge privilege for me and a perfect tribute to
one of England’s greatest composers.
Joining us on the
tour will be the renowned guitarist, Jay Stapley who performed with me at the
iconic Tubular Bells II concert live from Edinburgh Castle in 1992.
The wonderful thing about Tubular Bells is that it never seems to age, the
actual composition is just perfect and is as spell-binding now as it was
50 years ago. It incorporates so many things - folk and rock, blues and
jazz which evoke such melodic beauty and drama. This performance also features
others works by Mike: Moonlight Shadow, Omadawn and Summit Day."
Tickets:
16th February Gateshead Sage Tickets: https://ticketmaster-uk.tm7559.net/QOqrDz
18th March Stockton Globe – Tickets: https://prf.hn/l/OVkMmVW
