THE 'THEATRE DANCE MUSIC' VISION

The idea of music for Theatre Dance started right back in the early days of MIDI, after I was dragged around 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 in the morning, 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 requires. 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, fresh 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. 

Since then, Theatre Dance Music has grown and developed to meet the needs of the modern performer - high quality music recorded and available to stream live for both classes and performances.