Former DEEP PURPLE Keyboardist To Perform At MALCOLM ARNOLD FESTIVAL

On Sunday, October 7, Paul Mann will conduct former DEEP PURPLE keyboardist Jon Lord and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the main auditorium at the Royal & Derngate in Northhampton, England in a special recreation of the original DEEP PURPLE/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra concert at the Albert Hall

On September 24, 1969, Malcolm Arnold conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the hugely successful rock group DEEP PURPLE in the premiere of Jon Lord's "Concerto for Rock Group and Orchestra". Arnold also went on to conduct the RPO in the world premiere of his own, profoundly moving, "Symphony 6" — a major work in the Arnold oeuvre — in the second half of the programme. The juxtaposition of these two seemingly disparate pieces in the same concert — performed by musicians that hitherto would never have ventured into each other's "world" — was in itself ground-breaking at the time. The success of Lord's "Concerto for Rock Group and Orchestra" divided opinions across the more entrenched British music establishment in the 1960s. It was though, and remains, a seminal work.

A very real friendship between the two composers was forged during those heady days, a friendship that was to last until Sir Malcolm's death in September 2006. The often used labels of "serious" as opposed to "popular" music did not mean a great deal to either composer. What mattered was that the music was good. Malcolm Arnold's famous assertion that music is "a social act of communication among people, a gesture of friendship, the strongest there is" held as true for that famous concert with Jon Lord, DEEP PURPLE and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, as it did throughout his life.

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Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and DEEP PURPLE performing Jon Lord's "Concerto for Rock Group and Orchestra" in 1969: