TENOR FRANK Naughton is promising to dispel some of the doom and gloom pervading the country these days with two seasonal concerts at St Nicholas’s Collegiate Church on Friday December 3 and Saturday 4.
Meeting up over a morning coffee, Frank first reflected on what has been a successful year for him with a highlight being the hit Josef Locke tribute show in which he featured.
“I sing in Duo Voci with Sean Costello and he was asked to put together a Josef Locke tribute and I was honoured to be asked to be involved,” Frank explains. “Earlier this year we toured the country with it, we were in Limerick and Cork and finished up in the National Concert Hall – that was a fantastic night with a full house.
“It was such a success that it will be coming back next year, going to the Millennium Forum in Derry, where Josef Locke was born. There are filmed segments in the show about his life, Phil Coulter does the voiceover - he knew Locke very well and wrote ‘The Town I Loved So Well’ for him.
“It was great to be involved with that, it was lovely to play, we had fantastic musicians from the Slovakian Concert Orchestra, and it was one of the highlights of the year. Another highlight was doing the Concert for Manuela Riedo. There must have been 1,200 people or more there and it shows people’s generosity even in these difficult times.”
Frank goes on to disclose some of the highlights of his forthcoming concerts in St Nicholas’.
“We’re doing two nights, and I’m delighted to say Morgan Cooke is there as musical director and pianist,” says Frank. “We also have a lovely selection of featured instruments including saxophone, flute, piccolo, and violin.
Guests include soprano Delia Boyce and the Tribal Chamber Choir, directed by Mark Keane - they have a Christmas album out which I sing on - and we will be doing ‘Silent Night’.
“The very first song in the show will be Joni Mitchell’s ‘Both Sides Now’, a song I love and have wanted to do for ages. The choir will be doing pieces in the first half and I will be doing excerpts from the Josef Locke tribute, songs like ‘Dear Old Donegal’, ‘Goodbye’, ‘Hear My Song’ - I think people really warm to those pieces.”
The latter half of the show will be given over more to seasonal material.
“I’ll be kicking things off with the song ‘Pure Imagination’ from the film Willie Wonka & The Chocolate Factory and that will lead into a Christmas section of the show with songs like ‘Let It Snow’, ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’, and we’ll be doing a really nice version of ‘Hard Times’ which is an appropriate kind of song for these times we’re living through.
“We’ll also be having some lovely instrumental pieces by Morgan, who’ll do Debussy’s ‘Claire De Lune’, and some pieces by the orchestra. So for two/two a half hours it’ll be a real escape for people. I have one of the country’s finest lighting designers coming, Thomas Roan, and he has some great ideas for the place. I think it will be a really lovely evening.”
Tickets for the concerts are priced at €20/15 and are available from Zhivago Records and on the door.
