This week on “Sweetness and Light,” I can confidently say all the music will be Ernest! The focus is on Ernest Tomlinson. Tomlinson, extraordinarily long-lived, was born on this date in 1924. He died in 2015 at the age of 90.

Not only was he a light music master, he was also something of a patron saint of the genre. In 1984, when he was about 60, he learned that the BBC was disposing of its light music archive. He stepped up and founded the Library of Light Orchestral Music, rescuing an estimated 50,000 pieces, which he kept in a farmhouse on his family’s property.

Among his own light music classics are 100 pieces of library music – music to be licensed to film, television, and radio. He also composed thirteen orchestral suites, symphonic works (including works for symphonic jazz), works for solo instrument and orchestra, choral music, a one-act opera, and music for brass band.

I hope you’ll join me for one of his most popular works, his “Suite of English Folk-Dances,” after John Playford, three dances from his ballet “Aladdin,” and selections from a BBC radio play about Cinderella, broadcast on Christmas Eve 1955. It was the success of latter that secured Tomlinson the freedom to devote himself to full-time, freelance composition.

Learn more about the importance of being Ernest, on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT, exclusively on KWAX Classical Oregon!
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Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

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Tomlinson’s website

https://ernesttomlinson.com/

The library he founded, now maintained by The Light Music Society

https://www.lightmusicsociety.com/

Fun and informative 2007 documentary about British light music, featuring Tomlinson and other light music luminaries