The 50s: The Decade That Changed The World

RTÉ Concert Orchestra
Guy Barker, conductor
Giacomo Smith, clarinet/saxophone 
Clare Teal, vocalist
Cormac Kenevey, vocalist
James Pearson, piano  

Following the extraordinary Guy Barker’s Gatsby & Beyond New Year’s Eve Extravaganza, a wildly entertaining never-before-seen night of 1950s jazz promises to showcase the decade that changed the world, drawing on influences from Elvis to Ella Fitzgerald. 

Celebrating the cornerstone year of 1959, the year that changed jazz, pianist James Pearson, Artistic Director at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, will join the RTÉ Concert Orchestra for the second half of the night, performing the genre-altering music of John Coltrane, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman and more. 

A clarinet concerto, composed by Guy Barker and paying homage to the monumental decade, The Art of the Hang, will be performed by virtuoso musician Giacomo Smith alongside Pearson.  

Ethereal vocalist Clare Teal will join the group across a number of songs, including Judy Garland’s Get Happy, Doris Day’s Secret Love, plus the orchestra will perform a 1950s movie medley including music from A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Lift to the Scaffold (1958), and Otto Preminger noirs The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) and Anatomy of a Murder (1959). 

The evening will finish with a magnificent Louis Prima medley, paying tribute to the wave-making American trumpeter and singer, whose style was rooted in New Orleans jazz, swing music and jump blues, drawing also on Italian culture and language, blending elements of his Italian and Sicilian identity with his music. 

Presented by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra.