Palm Court music comes to the Town Hall – with Sunday tea

On Sunday (February 3) local violinist Tom Bott will be taking the Town Hall’s Assembly Room back in time with the sounds of his High Society Orchestra – and tea.  It’s the first of four ground-breaking Sunday live music sessions harking back to the days of the Palm Court orchestras.

Tom is a professional violinist who lives in Pewsey with his wife and their young son and even younger daughter.  He plays regularly with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and is guest principal second violinist with the National Symphony Orchestra.

When he’s not playing with one of the classical orchestras, Tom teaches at St Gabriel’s School for Girls in Newbury. It’s a busy family life as his wife Kim – they met at music college – teaches piano four days a week at Marlborough College.

Besides those commitments, he runs Tom Bott’s High Society Orchestra which plays in London and the south of England – principally at private functions such as weddings. He’s long wanted to find a ‘residency’ for the orchestra and as hotels seem only to be able to afford a pianist or at best a trio, he’s seized the chance to put on a series of concerts at Marlborough Town Hall.

As Tom told Marlborough News Online: “Once we’ve got a regular audience we can consider putting on larger concerts and events – like a New Year’s Viennese ball. I like the idea of socialising with a background of good live music – it’s digging back into the past – the era of the big hotels and their ballrooms.”

Tom’s grandfather (pictured left) ran a similar orchestra under the title ‘Bernard Bott & His Orchestra’ from the 1930’s onwards in the grand hotels and pavilions along the south west coast of England. Before this, Tom’s great-grandfather ran the show with ‘Herbert Bott & His Orchestra’ performing around Leicester.

Tom inherited his grandfather’s violin and his library of nearly one thousand pieces of sheet music, from Viennese waltzes and English light music, to Hollywood classic film scores by the likes of Irving Berlin and Rogers & Hammerstein.  

The Town Hall sessions will be in two afternoon sittings each with sixty seats – one at two o’clock and one at three-thirty (the latter is already sold out for the first Sunday.)  The food will be provided by Sarah Hicks. See our What’s On calendar for ticket details.

The dates for the first season are February 3, March 3, April 7, and May 5.  And there are plans for a second season of a Sunday-a-month starting in September.    

His plans for these unique events have been supported by Marlborough’s Mayor Edwina Fogg – as she explained to Marlborough News Online:   “I got to know Tom Bott when he offered to play for free at the Town Hall for the Diamond Jubilee celebrations. His orchestra played beautifully, so when he said that he was thinking of putting on tea dances, I encouraged him.”

“The Assembly Room is a lovely setting, with a tea to rival the Ritz, by our own local caterer, Sarah Hicks, and superb dance music – anyone for a foxtrot?”

There will be room for those who want to join the Mayor in a foxtrot – or perhaps a Sunday waltz.  And there will be glasses of bubbly available for those who need prompting to take to the floor.

Tom travels a lot – the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra play in many concert halls around the country and the national Symphony Orchestra has an annual fixture aboard Cunard’s QM2 on a transatlantic crossing.  So a regular season of concerts close to home seems a very good idea.

Tom thinks the Town Hall’s Assembly Room is the perfect size for this sort of concert – and his Orchestra will be represented by a quintet to suit the space and the acoustics.  There will be violin, viola, cello, double bass and piano.  All are local musicians except the pianist who’s from Stamford – and he has a lot of work to do as he plays the wind and brass parts as well as the piano part itself.

Just right to chat or to listen, or to chat and listen, as the Assembly Room becomes a musical time machine taking us back to way people were entertained and cheered during those austerity years of the late nineteen forties and early fifties – the days of the BBC’s Light Programme.

For more details visit the High Society Orchestra website.