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Mark Moraghan sings James Bond with the RLPO


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#1 quantumofsolace

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Posted 27 May 2013 - 10:07 PM

liverpoolecho 27 may 2013  http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/whats-on/music/mark-moraghan-sings-james-bond-4020429

Mark is joining fellow vocalist Hannah Levane, conductor Carl Davis and the massed ranks of the RLPO in the June 12 concert which forms part of the Phil’s annual Summer Pops series.

“Unfortunately, I’m not going to be Bond,” he shrugs. “But the next best thing is singing a few songs from the films.”

Those songs include the full range of 50 years of the British agent film franchise, stretching From Russia With Love to Quantum of Solace via Goldfinger, Casino Royale and Live and Let Die.

The only one in Mark’s repertoire already is in fact the latter, which Paul McCartney and Wings penned for the 1973 Roger Moore film, and which the actor sang when he played Dr Frankenstein in the Royal Court’s Christmas show, A Nightmare on Lime Street.

“McCartney can’t sing it in the original key any more, and when I was told I was doing Live and Let Die I was ‘Oh no, that’s too high for me’,” he reveals. “But there are a couple of killers in this that are really high.

“One is Another Way to Die, which was written by Jack White and Alicia Keys for Quantum of Solace. We’re doing that in the original key, so I’m going to let Hannah take the lead on that and I’ll just slot in behind!”



#2 quantumofsolace

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Posted 14 June 2013 - 12:10 AM

liverpoolecho 13 june 2013 http://www.liverpool...d-night-4307960 

James Bond battles through at the Phil

Sound issues can't hide grandeur of 007 songs

“Did you know,” said my neighbour on the bus the other day, “that the first music heard in a Bond film was Three Blind Mice?”

A calypso version was played over the opening credits of Dr No – and must be the only 007-related tune not to feature on the all-encompassing programme of this Summer Pops opener dedicated to the most famous (albeit fictional) of British agents.

Still, I’m not sure where you’d have crammed it in to an evening that featured everything but M’s kitchen sink, from that famous opening guitar riff of the James Bond Theme to Adele’s 2013 Oscar-winner, via a slew of evocative title numbers from the Sixties to the Noughties, including From Russia With Love, For Your Eyes Only and Die Another Day.

The RLPO’s brass section is enjoying a fertile time at present.

Last weekend, they rip-roared through Wagner, and last night they gave full brazen voice to John Barry’s Bond bombast. And when you put it all together in one sitting, what a lot of bombast that turns out to be.

The Phil, which knows its way around a film score, proved as impeccable as ever, crisp in its backing of the soloists and sweeping through a handful of orchestral arrangements including a swoony You Only Live Twice.

But it really needed its own techno-wizard Q to sort out the persistent sound issues which marred the first half (arguably containing the bulk of the best Bond numbers) of the evening.

Perhaps singer/presenter Mark Moraghan and Hannah Levane’s microphones had been tampered with by SPECTRE? Something certainly caused them to sound tinny and remote, which spoilt the delivery of classics like From Russia With Love, Thunderball and The Look of Love.

They fared better with the more robust numbers, Levane bringing a ballsy warmth to Goldfinger and Diamonds Are Forever without aping Shirley Bassey, and Moraghan delivering McCartney’s Live and Let Die with conviction.

Elsewhere, though, Moraghan wasn’t having the best of nights, the mic issue exacerbating a rather rushed and garbled narration between songs, and his rendition of Louis Armstrong’s We Have All the Time in the World somehow lacking magic.

Most of the glitches, human and technical, were ironed out after the interval, and the second half ended on a high with Skyfall – a Bond theme in the best traditions of the genre.