Neil Ogley

The idea of music for Theatre Dance started right back in the early days of MIDI after being dragged round dance competitions and festivals first as the brother of a dancer and then as a dancing school pianist. Some of you might remember those, the school I worked for, Doncaster South Yorkshire  was even back in 1976, a well established and highly successful school.

The story I tell now when I am performing is that while my friends from school were doing paper rounds every day of the week at silly O'clock I was not. My job was far worse. I was trapped in a room with mainly girls for the entire Saturday, and as you can imagine I hated it! This is where I really learned about Theatre Dance and the music that it required. The Marilyn Baker School of Dance, Armthorpe Doncaster, and Marilyn herself gave me the opportunity I needed to really improve my playing across all genres. I played for shows, exams and competitions. 

In those days there were no recordings, for dancers, or at least very few. Our school had two pianists and I was one of them. After a really brilliant time with Marilyn, I left to join the Royal Marines Band Service in 1980, right out of school. 

It was eight years later that I produced my first recordings from my garage on cassette tape. This was done as a result of a direct need by dancers for specific music for Theatre Dance.