Playing Wicked with LMTO – The London Musical Theatre Orchestra
The London musical theatre orchestra is a relatively new organisation designed to take famous works and extend them to orchestral playing. The integrity of the original works is kept, however where necessary additional parts are arranged to accommodate extra members of the orchestra not normally present in the show’s stage counterparts.
The most recent production, that I had the honour to perform, was the music of Wicked, as part of a 100 piece orchestra which included 40 voices!
The music was orchestrated for two guitars of which I was Guitar One. This particular part had the majority of the electric guitar parts and included passages requiring me to use an Ebow and Seek Wah sound amongst typical heavy distortions and shimmery cleans. There were a lot of interesting suspended chord voicings, searing lead lines and some delicate chord and arpeggio work. A real workout!
There are many ‘corners’ in the music of Wicked, involving lots of time signature changes and variations in feel. In order to navigate these we had a rehearsal in the afternoon and a full run-through with the choir in the evening. The sound was incredible, and it was a real buzz to play this music in such a setting.
It was a shame we couldn’t perform the music to an audience (due to rights issues), however I am hopeful that the opportunity will arise in the near future. The next show will be the Sound of Music, however I will be otherwise engaged elsewhere, so I will have two wait for the next one! Do check out the LMTO, as it’s a fantastic organisation!