BBC Northern Dance Orchestra

The BBC Northern Dance Orchestra was a big band run by the BBC and formed in 1951^[1] as the successor to the BBC's Northern Variety Orchestra. Known to listeners as the NDO, it broadcast on the radio daily from the Playhouse Theatre in Hulme before moving to the BBC studios in Oxford Road.^[2] Many well-known musicians played with the orchestra over the years including trumpeter Syd Lawrence, who left the NDO and formed his own very successful big band in 1967.^[2]

Using a standard big band line-up of five saxophones, a flute, four trombones, four trumpets, solo violin and a rhythm section of piano, double bass, guitar, drums and percussion, the orchestra was conducted by its musical director Alyn Ainsworth, who also wrote a great deal of the band's arrangements. He was succeeded by flautist and arranger Bernard Herrmann (not to be confused with the American film score writer Bernard Herrman). As well as its radio broadcasts, the orchestra also appeared regularly on BBC television in shows such as Six-Five Special, Pop North, and Here we Go.

The band was threatened with closure in 1969, as much of its work was by then being carried out by the London-based BBC Big Band, the successor to the BBC Dance Orchestra and BBC Showband, which functioned as part of the larger BBC Radio Orchestra. A public outcry about the closure of the NDO followed, and the band was retained. But under a shake-up of musical policy, the orchestra was slightly reorganised by the BBC in 1975 as the BBC Northern Radio Orchestra.^[1] Under the leadership of Neil Richardson, it continued until the BBC closed many of its in-house orchestras in 1985.^[3]

See also

• List of radio orchestras

References

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} Garner, Stephen, Northern Dance Orchestra, Big Bands Database, http://www.nfo.net/brit/bn.html#TOP, retrieved 6 September 2010 
2. ^ ^{a b} Moss 1994, pp. 7–9
3. ^ Neil Richardson biography at Radio Cafe, URL accessed 9 October 2010

Bibliography

• Moss, Phil (1994), Manchester's Music Makers, Neil Richardson, ISBN 1-85216-086-1 

Links

http://www.northerndanceorchestra.org.uk