Friday Night is Music Night - 05/02/2010

Tonight Friday Night is Music Night pays tribute to the arranger Angela Morley who died last year. Angela was born Wally Stott in Leeds in March 1924. In a career at the BBC, Wally was the musical director for the Goons Show and wrote the signature tune and accompanying music to Hancock's Half Hour. As a musical director in the 1950s, Wally worked with the cream of British pop including the likes of Shirley Bassey, Dusty Springfield and Ronnie Carroll. He also composed a number of tuneful light music pieces including Rotten Row and Canadian in Mayfair. Following a sex change operation in 1960, Wally took the name Angela Morley and became one of the great orchestral arrangers working mostly in the United States. She won two Emmy Awards for her work with Julie Andrews and was nominated twice for an Oscar for her work on The Slipper and the Rose with the Sherman Brothers and The Little Prince with Lerner and Loewe. She also provided the scores for classic 70s television shows such as Dallas, Dynasty and Cagney and Lacey. From the 1970s Angela was closely associated with the composer John Williams and aided him in the production of many of his classic film scores - including Star Wars, Superman and ET. It began a long association with the Boston Pops Orchestra. Keith Lockhart is the current principal conductor of the Boston Pops and in tonight's show he and the BBC Concert Orchestra perform some of Angela's finest work from the Boston Pops Library as well as some Friday Night favourites including music from The Slipper And The Rose and Watership Down.