Music of the Night

Featuring Vocal/Piano Duo Louise Howlett and Albert Combrink

“Music of the Night” is a programme of songs inspired by the Night… a full mixture of well known songs and styles: Classical, Broadway, Opera and Jazz that seamlessly flows through the performance of Louise’s unique voice and Albert’s charismatic accompaniment in an intimate presentation style that takes you on a journey of musical and personal memories of love, longing and everything else.

Louise studied at the Royal College of Music in London and made her Cape Town classical debut with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra at its millennium concert at Kirstenbosch. Her passion for jazz and the musicals has led her to create her own unique Singing Lady brand of Across The Styles performances which she performs throughout the province.  She recently released her second album Night Sessions with Albert Combrink.

Albert Combrink holds an MMUS in Piano Performance from Natal University, where he studied under Isabella Stengel, as well as UNISA Licentiates for Piano Performance, Accompaniment and Teaching (Cum Laude). Since making his recording and concerto debut at 18 as soloist with the Natal Philharmonic orchestra, he has gone on to make his name both in the fields of Classical and Contemporary music. Albert pianist with the CT Tango Ensemble who recently received a SAMA Award Nomination for “Best Instrumental Album” for their CD “Tango Club”.

Visit Kalahari Theatre’s Website HERE.

“Fly me to the Moon” written by Bart Howard (1954)

Louise Howlett (voice) & Albert Combrink (keyboard)

A Little Fly Me to the Moon History:

Purchase downloadable tracks of the CD at CDBABY.com

Fly me to the moon – FREE DOWNLOADABLE SHEET MUSIC

"Fly me to the Moon" Free Sheet Music

Fly me to the moon – Lyrics:

Fly me to the moon
Let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like on
Jupiter and Mars

In other words, hold my hand
In other words, baby, kiss me

Fill my heart with song
And let me sing forever more
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore

In other words, please be true
In other words, I love you

Fill my heart with song
Let me sing forever more
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore

In other words, please be true
In other words
In other words

I love you

Music of the Night

Louise Howlett (vocals) & Albert Combrink (Piano)

“Music of the night” features the versatile soprano Louise Howlett and Pianist Albert Combrink in a touching programme of songs depicting stories of love lost and found through the styles of Opera, Broadway and Jazz.  Listeners of Fine Music Radio will not only recognize her as the presenter of For the Love of Opera, but also that of the smooth silky voice featured in Night Sessions, their new CD now frequently played over the radio, songs of which will also feature in the concert. Songs include favourites by many such as Lloyd-Webber & Sondheim.  “As time goes by” & “Stardust” rub shoulders with famous musicals in a programme designed to appeal to all ages.

Endler Concert Series (Stellenbosch University) - Matinée

Sunday 22 May 16h30

Tickets R99 / R75

Tickets available at Computicket outlets countrywide. Box office at the Endler Hall will be open on the day
For further enquiries, please call the Endler Hall Concert Series on 021 808 2343 during office hours.

Louise Howlett studied at the Royal College of Music in London and made her Cape Town classical debut with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra at its millennium concert at Kirstenbosch. Her passion for jazz and the musicals has led her to create her own unique Singing Lady brand of Across The Styles performances which she performs throughout the province.  She recently released her second album Night Sessions with Albert Combrink.

Albert Combrink holds an MMUS in Piano Performance from Natal University, where he studied under Isabella Stengel, as well as UNISA Licentiates for Piano Performance, Accompaniment and Teaching (Cum Laude). Since making his recording and concerto debut at 18 as soloist with the Natal Philharmonic orchestra, he has gone on to make his name both in the fields of Classical and Contemporary music. Albert pianist with the CT Tango Ensemble who recently received a SAMA Award Nomination for “Best Instrumental Album” for their CD “Tango Club”.

Listen to the Dymanic Duo perform Old Devil Moon  at Encyclopedia.com

Visit Stellenbosch University HERE.

Table Bay Hotel Jazz Brunch Presents: Louise Howlett and Albert Combrink

Sunday 1 May 2011

12:30 PM

Where: The Conservatory at the Table Bay

Breakwater Boulevard
Quay 6
V & A Waterfront

Cost: Full Buffet – R225 per person

Bookings Essential: Tel: (+27+21) 406 5988

The programme presented by the Vocal & Piano Duo will include a generous selection of Jazz Standards as well as tracks taken from their CD Night Sessions.

Enjoy a great meal and some great jazz in a spectacular venue.

Love is in the air or, in our case, in the water! On Monday 14 February, we’re opening our doors to the romantics, the in-loves, the love-you-forevers and the where-have-you-been-all-my-life to celebrate Valentine’s Day under the watchful eye of ragged-tooth sharks, a turtle called Yoshi and shoals of shimmering fish. Book your romantic aquatic celebration and enjoy dinner either in front of the magnificent I&J Predator Exhibit or the mesmerising Kelp Forest Exhibit.

Photo: Dagney Warmerdam

You are invited to relax, take in the scenery and the esteemed company while enjoying a delectable three-course meal and great live music. There are six areas in the Aquarium to choose from. Each area has a varying number of two-seater tables offering different views into the spectacular exhibits. Pricing for tables in the I&J Predator Exhibit and the Kelp Forest Exhibit range from R300 per person to R350 per person. All prices include a three-course dinner, live music by Vocalist Louise Howlett and Pianist Albert Combrink, and welcome drinks.

I&J Predator Exhibit pit: R350 per person

I&J Predator Exhibit tunnel: R350 per person

Kelp Forest pit: R350 per person

Lower I&J Predator Exhibit: R325 per person

Upper Kelp Forest Exhibit: R325 per peper person

Upper I&J Predator Exhibit: R300 per person

Make it a group outing! We are also offering a group of friends the opportunity to celebrate their friendship on Valentine’s Day. The captivating Tranquility, with its view into the Kelp Forest Exhibit, is available as an exclusive venue for between six and 12 people. If a one-on-one Valentine’s is just not your thing, bring your friends or family and make a party of it. The exclusive use of Tranquility is priced at R400 per person.

To book and/or enquire about Tranquility for Valentine’s Day, please call our Members’ Centre on 021 418 3823. This option can’t be booked online.

Read more HERE.

V & A Waterfront - Intimate Indoor Entertainment: Albert Combrink and Louise Howlett: Night Sessions

Albert Combrink has had a long and fruitful musical career – he was répétiteur for The Magic Flute on London’s West End and is a member of the Cape Town Tango Ensemble. Louise Howlett – known simply as “the singing lady” –  performs all sorts of styles, from classical to broadway from opera to jazz. Join us at the V&A Waterfront two see these two musicians at work.

Location: Victoria Wharf Shopping Centre
Cost: None

Contact details

• Contact Name:V&A Waterfront Information Centre
• Email: info@waterfront.co.za
• Telephone: +27 (0)21 408 7600

Dates/times

• Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 7:00pm – 8:30pm
• Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 7:00pm – 8:30pm
• Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 7:00pm – 8:30pm
• Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 7:00pm – 8:30pm

Visit the Waterfront Website HERE

Like a Half-darkened theater

Both Howlett and Combrink wear more than one hat in the music world. He is a superb and humble accompanist and does his part almost unnoticed. Then he can be very flamboyant when he performs with the CT Tango Ensemble. She drifts effortlessly from classical to musicals to jazz.

For this album they chose ballads and timeless songs. The CD conjures up a half-darkened, small theatre. The pianist is probably wearing a hat, and the singer is in a black dress. In this atmosphere the work of Sondheim, Cole Porter and Edith Piaf fit snugly.

The most beautiful song on the album is Song to the Moon – Dvorak can be sung.

This is an album for a niche market, but will reward anyone who quietly sits and listens to it.

Mariana Malan

Die Burger (Also Published concurrently in Die Beeld)

Friday 26 November 2010.

The following information is by Bill Brent and was published originally in the Weekly Bugle.

Thought you’d be interested in the story of Blue Moon.

Bill Brent

Blue Moon was the only Rodgers and Hart song to become a hit, that was not written for a  show or movie; but Blue Moon has a remarkable history.  The lyric that we are familiar  with was the fourth… here’s the story:

Rodgers and Hart were under contract to MGM for about a month when they were given the  task of writing songs for the “Hollywood Party”.  They were told every MGM star would  be in it, Disney was making a technicolor cartoon to stick in the middle of it, and it  was to be the big screwball comedy “to end all screwball comedies”  to quote Richard Rodgers…   “One of our ideas was to include a scene in which Jean Harlow is shown as an innocent  young girl saying – or rather singing- her prayers.  How the sequence fitted into the movie  I haven’t the foggiest notion, but the purpose was to express Jean’s overwhelming ambition  to become a movie star (‘Oh Lord, if you’re not busy up there,/I ask for help with a prayer/  So please don’t give me the air…’).”     The scene was never shot, no sound checks were ever made, and in fact, only three  of the dozen or so Rodgers and Hart songs written for the film made it to the screen.  So MGM Song #225 is dated June 14, 1933, and was registered for copy-right as an  unpublished work by MGM, JULY 10, 1933.  The remarkable saga of “Prayer” epitomizes  what Rodgers and Hart went througn when they were under contract to Metro.

"Blue Moon" - Melissa Sadie Wright (permission to use requested)

In its second life the “Prayer”/”Blue Moon” tune was given a new lyric and  became the title song of the 1934 MGM film Manhatian Melodrama, which starred Clark  Gable, William Powell, Myrna Loy, and Leo Carillo, and was the movie that John Dillinger  had been watching when he was gunned down outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago.  It was registered for copyright as an unpublished work by Metro-Goidwyn Mayer, March 30,  1934. So Hart wrote a lyric for the song to be used as the title song (played either before  or during the opening credits of the Movie)… But before “High Noon”, you just didn’t have  too many title songs, so “Its Just That Kind of a Play” AKA The Manhattan Melodrama was cut.

Rodgers liked the melody and when MGM asked for a nightclub number for “Manhattan Melodrama”,  he had Hart write new lyrics and “Prayer (Oh Lord, make me a movie star)” became “The bad  in every man” sung by Shirley Ross.  The song made it into the film but did not become a hit.   The press kit shows sheet music on the song, but I’ve never run across any.

It was Rodgers & Hart’s publisher, Jack Robbins who told them he thought the song would be a  hit, if Hart could make it more commercial.  Hart was reluctant to write a fourth lyric, but  Robbins swore he’d plug the song from California to Maine.  Hart caved in and wrote “Blue Moon”.  Robbins “gave” it to the “Hollywood Hotel”, a radio program that used it as their theme, and  on January 15, 1934 He had Connie Boswell record it for Columbia.     Blue Moon turned up in at least seven other MGM motion pictures including “Marx Brothers  At The Circus” and “Viva Las Vegas”.

PRAYER

Oh, Lord, If you ain’t busy up there,
I ask for help with a prayer,
So please don’t give me the air.
Oh, hear me, Lord. I must see Garbo in person
With Gable when they’re rehearsin’
While some director is cursin’.
Please let me open up my, eyes at seven
And find I’m looking through the Golden Gate

Download a Free Copy of the Sheet music of Blue Moon by Rodgers & Hart, courtesy of Wikifonia.org.
Blue Moon – Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart

Louise Howlett & Albert Combrink

Singer Louise Howlett and Pianist Albert Combrink perform the ever-popular Bésame Mucho at the launch of their recent CD Night Sessions , 7 October 2010 in Cape Town.

Louise Howlett

Download Free Video of Bésame Mucho:

As is her trademark, Louise Howlett doesn’t provide just a surface glitz to this “Latin Anthem”, but gets to the heart of the dreams and ambitions of the storyteller. Her version of the song tells the story of someone, blindly and madly in love and just wanting to shower her lover with kisses. But there is a niggling feeling, that she is afraid that this happiness might not last.

Mexico's beloved "Consuelito" Velázquez

This song was composed in Spanish in 1940 by the Mexican songwriter Consuelo Velázquez. Born in either 1916 or 1920, depending on which of her autobiographies you chose to believe, she was in her early twenties – and according to herself – had never yet been kissed.

“She was inspired by the piano piece Quejas, o la Maja y el Ruiseñor“from the 1911 suite Goyescas by Spanish composer Enrique Granados, which he later also included as Aria of the Nightingale in his 1916 opera Goyescas. When asked, years later, whose love had inspired the powerful lyrics, she replied that she had written it before she had ever been kissed, and said that the entire song was a “product of imagination”.” [Margalit Fox: New York Times Obituaries, 30 Jan 2005]

“Consuelo Velázquez was born in Ciudad Guzmán, Jalisco, on August 21, 1920, but grew up in Guadalajara. She began playing piano when she was 4, gave her first public recital at age 6, and moved to Mexico City in her teens to attend the National Conservatory and the Palace of Fine Arts. She became a concert pianist and started writing popular songs shortly afterwards, while overseeing classical music programs for the pioneering radio station XEQ.

“Bésame mucho”(Kiss me a lot) was first recorded in 1941 (by Emilio Tuero and Chela Campos) and became a huge Big Band hit during the Second World War. In 1999, the song, the only Mexican song ever to have topped the U.S. hit parade for 12 straight weeks, was declared the “Song of the Century” at a Univisión event in Miami, Florida.

In addition, “Bésame mucho” featured in several movies, including “A toda máquina” (1951), “The moon over Parador” (1988), “Sueños de Arizona” (1993), and “Moskva Slezam ne Verit”, a Russian movie which won the 1980 Oscar for Best Foreign Film”. [Tony Burton: Mexconnect, 14 March 2008]

Bésame Mucho – Original Spanish Lyrics by Consuelo Velázquez

Bésame, bésame mucho,
Como si fuera esta noche la última vez.
Bésame, bésame mucho,
Que tengo miedo a tenerte y perderte después.

Quiero tenerte muy cerca,
Mirarme en tus ojos, verte junto a mí.
Piensa que tal vez mañana
Yo ya estaré lejos, muy lejos de tí.

Bésame, bésame mucho,
Como si fuera esta noche la última vez.
Bésame, bésame mucho,
Que tengo miedo a tenerte y perderte después

Vocalist and Storyteller Louise Howlett

Bésame Mucho – Rough English Translation by Albert Combrink from the original Spanish by Consuelo Velázquez

Kiss me, kiss me lots
As if this night were the very last time.
Kiss me, kiss me many times
Because I ‘m afraid that I will have you – and then lose you.

I want to hold you so very close,
To see myself in your eyes, to see you next to me.
Think that maybe tomorrow
I might be far, far away from you.

Kiss me, kiss me lots
As if this night were the very last time.
Kiss me, kiss me many times
Because I ‘m afraid that I will have you – and then lose you.

Bésame Mucho (Consuelo Velázquez) – Download Free Sheet Music:

Score reproduced by birthpiano.com

Below, you can view a News Feature on Consuelo Velázquez, which was aired in 2003 by American Univision Broadcast Network. (Produced and directed by Ruben Carrillo)

Listen to the late great Spanish Pianist Alicia de Larrocha perform the work that inspired the writing of Besame Mucho: Quejas, o la maja y el ruiseñor/The Maiden and the Nightingale by composer Enrique Granados.

This song has come to mean many things to different people over its 70-odd years life-span. Today it resonates with the urban-chic and world-trendy, but many older generations still associate it with the love and loss of World War II.

Alfred Eisenstaedt’s image of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square on V-J Day in 1945. (Photo: Alfred Eisenstaedt, Time-Life/Getty Images)

Read more about these photographs in Sewell Chan’s article for the New York Times.