Tom Harrison
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Beginning Again

12/2/2020

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A well-known fact: I’m a trumpet player. To be phoned up and asked to play trumpet in a new show is a happy but unsurprising turn of events. But to be asked to play a part that’s half trumpet and half theremin, and told that I seemed like the obvious person to ask to learn such an instrument, is rather more surprising.

My prior knowledge of the theremin had been, exclusively, the famous video of Clara Rockmore playing The Swan (look it up if you haven’t seen it) and Bill Bailey. From watching these two performers, it’s fairly evident that playing a tune is the hard part. The show is a new arrival from Broadway, a high school techno sci-fi called Be More Chill. In contrast to many shows out there, it has music practically throughout – tons of pop/rock songs with an impressive variety of styles chucked in, including reggae, funk, disco and even dubstep – but the theremin is, naturally, the star of the show. I get to make a load of weird sci-fi noises and play some wailing tunes (both of which, in succession, open the show).

I picked my theremin up from the producer a week before the first rehearsal. Day one consisted of me being so confused that I thought the thing had been wired wrongly. I couldn’t make sense of the manual and ended up texting two physicists and emailing Moog to ask what on Earth was up with my theremin. That was all I managed. Day two, I realised the purpose of the knobs on the side and had to send an embarrassed please-ignore-my-folly email to Moog. The rest of the day was spent on YouTube finding out what to do with my hands. A melody was a long way off.

On the third day, I played a scale...roughly. I had learnt the eight hand positions and could get firmly within a minor third of each note. And seriously, I had vibrato nailed. Day four came with the sudden realisation that this was a two-handed instrument. My left hand had been hovering politely just above the loop antenna, which didn’t make me look much like the experts with their precision hands movements on both sides. The common saying that a violinist’s bow hand is the important one started to hit home.

Day five: staccato and long note shaping – it’s beginning to sound like music! Day six is a regression, when the conscious incompetence kicks in…music, just about, but I have a long way to go. By day seven, I can stumble through what I have to play in the show, just in time for the following day’s rehearsal. I then have a couple of weeks to iron out what I can. Learning a new instrument is an eye opening experience – I now know what it feels like to be a beginner in music. Mind-boggling; but honestly, so much fun.
Be More Chill The Other Palace 2020
Be More Chill runs at The Other Palace in London from 12 February – 14 June 2020.
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On a Bigger Roof

14/3/2019

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Fiddler On The Roof 2019, Playhouse Theatre
A career in London’s West End has been my most defined dream since I was a teenager. The West End is indisputably the pinnacle of British theatre, if not Europe’s. And now, I am proud to say that I am a part of it.

After our sold out run at the Menier Chocolate Factory over the last few months, Fiddler On The Roof will go into the Playhouse Theatre for most of the rest of the year. It’s been thrilling to be in such a highly acclaimed production, and with an opportunity to explore a bit of the klezmer style too. Childhood me will also be very excited that I make an appearance on stage in the West End! On top of all this, I can feel nicely smug in the assumption that I play the longest wind note in town...

Fiddler On The Roof is currently booking until 28 September 2019.

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My Time On The Roof

16/11/2018

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For the same season as last year, I’m back at the adorable Menier Chocolate Factory again, this time for a true classic. Fiddler on the Roof is one of the best loved and most famous musicals there is: when it first appeared on Broadway, it ran for 8 years – almost five times as long as any musical before it! On a more personal level, my very first paid gig in London when I arrived to study at Guildhall was a production of this very musical. This time around will be a very different experience to that 2-week Am Dram version back then (including the fact that this version will be directed by Sir Trevor Nunn, and will star, for example, Judy Kuhn, the voice of Disney’s Pocahontas) but, six years on, I still have the pleasing sense of a full circle.
Picture
Menier Chocolate Factory
23 Nov – 9 Mar 2017
Tickets: £25 – £57.50
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It’s As If She Never Went Away

15/6/2018

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Two years ago, I was involved in a very special show about one of the most wonderful performers of the Broadway stage, Judy Garland. Then titled Through The Mill (a beautifully relevant quote from her hit song The Man That Got Away), I joined the company when the production upscaled(!) to the Southwark Playhouse. Last year, it transferred again to the Arts Theatre in Soho, which I sadly had to decline because of my tour.

But this June, the show is once again reincarnated for a single concert performance in the magnificent Hippodrome Casino in Leicester Square, under the apt title of Judy’s Back.

Boasting its biggest band yet, this show contains some corkers of Old Broadway, meaning I am happy. Playing the soaring, larger-than-life music of this era is a unique thrill. For me, it’s the timbre and straightforwardness of earlier jazz mixed with the energy and expanse of modern show tunes that really makes the style special. Really though, I live for just the last few bars of Almost Like Being In Love.

Judy’s Back is on at the Hippodrome Casino on Friday 22 June, 8pm.
Tickets £30-£50
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Joining The Circus

18/11/2017

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It’s showtime once again, and this one a bit closer to home than the last (literally, I mean – I can’t say I have too many roots in circus). Home, sweet home, at the beautiful Menier Chocolate Factory in Southwark for three months – it’s a dream job. And ok, it’s not pure circus, just a musical about one, but I’ve seen some pretty amazing stunts nonetheless. I’m told that there’s fire-eating, and a woman gets thrown accross the stage!! Alas, my job sounds dull compared to the capricosities and funambulosities going on around me, but I do get to whip out my dusty cornet for a couple of numbers…it’s the little things for me.

So the musical is the great Cy Coleman’s Barnum, named after the 19th Century impressario of the same name. Anyone who’s seen a bus recently may have noted that the soon-to-be-released film The Greatest Showman tells the same story. Having been written by Mr Coleman, naturally the music is great, which is, as we all know, the most important thing. The second most important thing is this: when do I get a go on the tightrope?!

Menier Chocolate Factory
25 Nov – 3 Mar 2017
Tickets: £25 – £57.50
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EPK Release

13/4/2017

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The trailer for my tour of Wonderland is finally out! Check out the YouTube video below. After twelve weeks, the show is still just as much fun to play – here's to the next eighteen!
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On The Road Again

1/1/2017

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2017 is easy. For two thirds of it, I have one job. Of course, I’ll still be doing everything else that I normally do, but until August, my time will largely be spent touring the UK and Ireland with Frank Wildhorn’s new musical Wonderland. Starring British musical theatre’s current queen of the stage Kerry Ellis, it will be the UK and European premiere of this musical adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland.

Wonderland is my second tour to date, and much longer than my first one a couple of years ago. I’m very excited to be performing music by such a well-known composer as Frank Wildhorn, and it truly is a great score for both orchestra and audience. We’ll be coming to a theatre near you with venues including Edinburgh, York, Bromley, Belfast, Manchester, Wimbledon, Bristol, Liverpool, Dublin, Glasgow and Richmond.

20 Jan – 19 Aug 2017

​www.wonderlandthemusical.com
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The Next Ten Minutes

6/11/2016

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The keenest of my followers may be aware that I am an occasional singer. Despite being brought up on musical theatre, I made a definite, potentially deliberate move to the classical side of things when I started at Wells Cathedral School at 16. I stuck at it for the following six years, and it wasn’t until the end of my time at Guildhall that I found myself branching out again.

This return to treading the boards is beginning with an industry showcase at the London Theatre Workshop’s new home in Leadenhall Market, where I will be performing a couple of songs from Ray Rackham's new (so new it’s only half-written!) musical Therapy. The showcase is wonderfully titled The Next Ten Minutes, in which there will be featured ten (roughly) minutes from each of six pieces that LTW plan to produce next year. Could this be an anomaly of my career or something much more significant? Only time will tell.
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[Guildhall] School's out forever

7/7/2016

 
​My degree is over. My final recital, a month ago today, really was the highlight of my four years at the Guildhall School, as it was everything I had planned it to be – a showcase of who I am as a musician. It had some natural trumpet, in Bach's second Brandenburg Concerto (without a doubt the best piece of baroque trumpet music in existence); I got to play the flugelhorn and exercise my choral roots in a rendition of Gammal Fäbodpsalm från Dalarna for flugelhorn and choir (though I did give up on the arranging side of things and persuaded a dear friend to do that bit for me); and I managed to fit a substantial bit of musical theatre in too – 76 songs in total – with my new invention of the musical theatre trumpet concerto!

Eternal thanks to my composer, Sam, my arranger, Charlie, the 30 musicians who played in the recital (it was meant to be 28, but following a very-last-minute illness, I had to replace a reed tripler with three separate musicians – I prefer a round number anyway), and of course, everyone who came to watch! The rest of you, check out the video which is now up on YouTube for your unlimited enjoyment.

A Southwark Summer

29/6/2016

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​The summer of 2016 is just how I like it – musicals, musicals, musicals! Or, at least, musical musical. Think of it as a double bill, except with a complete change of cast, production company and all but one of the band. Ok, so I'm playing for two shows back to back in the same theatre this summer, that's the gist. They are two very exciting shows, however, and for different reasons.

The first, for four weeks only, is the transfer of the critically acclaimed Through The Mill, which began its happy life at the London Theatre Workshop last Christmas. It depicts the life story of my all-time favourite singer, Judy Garland, this time around with a new script, reimagined production and, most importantly, a bigger band.

The second, running throughout August and into September, is a real groundbreaker. Ever heard of Rogers and Hammerstein? Ever seen their show Allegro (Sondheim's favourite)? Probably not, because it has never been performed in Europe...until now! The historic production is headed by a cast of 16, plus 8-piece band. See it.

Through The Mill
Southwark Playhouse
6 - 30 July 2016
Tickets: £20, £16, £12

Allegro (European Premiere)
Southwark Playhouse
5 August - 10 September 2016
Tickets: £25, £20, £14
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