orchestra | The Harmonica Archivist

Tommy Reilly gave the world premiere of Michael Spivakovsky’s ‘Concerto for harmonica and orchestra’, which was dedicated to him, during the Festival of Britain in 1951, with the London Radio Concert Orchestra (leader, Max Jaffa), conducted by Mark Lubbock. He also had works written for him by such composers as Gordon Jacob, James Moody, Vilem Tausky, Graham Whettam, Matyas Seiber, Robert Farnon, George Martin, Alan Langford, Les Reed, Fried Walter, Karl Heinz Köper, Willem Strietman and others.

Tommy played with many international orchestras and conductors around the world.
Here is a list of them. Some performances are available on his LPs/CDs.

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UK:

Academy of St.Martin-in-the-Fields/Sir Neville Marriner, Iona Brown, Kenneth Sillito

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Arthur Davison, Darrell Davison

London Symphony Orchestra/Lawrence Leonard

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Robert Farnon

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/Sir Charles Groves

English String Orchestra/William Boughton

London Sinfonietta/David Atherton

Royal Academy Orchestra/Colin Melors

The Wren Orchestra/Charles Farncombe

Northern Chamber Orchestra/Peter Leary

Bristol Concert Orchestra/Frank Cantell

BBC Concert Orchestra/Vilem Tausky, Marcus Dods, Ashley Lawrence, Robert Farnon, Henry Krips, Gilbert Vinter, David Snell, Iain Sutherland, et al.

London Radio Concert Orchestra/Mark Lubbock, George Melachrino

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Ole Schmidt

BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra/John Hopkins, George Hurst, Robert Farnon

BBC Welsh Orchestra/Rae Jenkins, Arwel Hughes, John Carewe

BBC Midland Orchestra/Gilbert Vinter

BBC Radio Orchestra/David Snell, David Francis, Robert Farnon

Royal Northern College Symphony Orchestra, Manchester/Trevor Wye

Netherland:

Metropole Orchestra/Dolf van der Linden, Rogier van Otterloo

Northern Philharmonic Orchestra, Groningen/Dolf van der Linden

Dutch Radio Chamber Orchestra/Ernest Bour

Dutch Radio Promenade Orchestra/Kenneth Alwyn, Jan Stulen, Stanley Black

Dutch Radio Symphony Orchestra/Henk Spruit

Belgium:

Belgian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Fernand Terby

France:

French Radio Symphony Orchestra/Wal Berg

Germany:

Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (RIAS, SFB)/Fried Walter, Kurt Kiermeir, Werner Eisbrenner

Hamburg Rundfunkorchester Nordeutscher Rundfunk (NDR)/Richard Müller-Lampertz, Wilhelm Stephan, Wolfgang Friebe

Hannover Rundfunkorchester (NDR)/ Richard Müller-Lampertz, Heinz Geese, Willy Mattes, Reto Parolari

Köln Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester (WDR/Curt Cremer Radio Bremen Rundfunkorchester/Franz Frankenberg

Hessischer Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester, Frankfurt/Johannes Pütz, Christian Stalling Südwestfunk Sinfonieorchester Kaiserslautern/Emmerich Smola, Klaus Arp

Süddeutscher Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart/Heinz Schröder, Hans Conzelmann

Bayerischer Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester München/Werner Schmidt Boelcke, Heinz Wallberg, Peter Falk, Janos Guylai-Gaal, Martin Böttcher, Heinz Geese

Essen Philharmoniker/Heinz Wallberg

Stuttgart Philharmoniker

Wiesbaden Sinfonieorchester/Siegfried Köhler

Switzerland:

Basel Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester/Cedric Dumont

Schweizer Rundfunkorchester Zürich/Hans Moeckel

Radio Svizzera Italiana Orchestra,Lugano/Bruno Amaducci

Poland:

Krakow Symphony Orchestra/Jerzy Gert

Portugal:

Orquestra Gulbenkian, Lisboa/Alvaro Salazar

Denmark:

Danish Radio Orchestra, Copenhagen/Kai Mortensen, Robert Farnon, Gilbert Vinter

Aarhus Symphony Orchestra/Øivind Bergh

Aalborg Symphony Orchestra/Per Dreier

Sweden:

Swedish Radio Orchestra, Stockholm/Stig Rybrant

Göteborg (Gothenburg) Symphony Orchestra

Norrköping Symphony Orchestra/Göran W.Nilsson

Malmö Radio Orchestra

Hälsingborg Symphony Orchestra

Norway:

Norwegian Radio Orchestra/Øivind Bergh, Sverre Bruland, Robert Farnon

Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra/Øivin Fjeldstad, Christopher Seaman

Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/Øivind Bergh, Karsten Andersen

Trondheim Symphony Orchestra/Finn Audun Oftedal

Norwegian Youth Symphony Orchestra/Iain Sutherland

Canada:

Toronto Symphony Orchestra/Erich Kunzel

Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra/Erich Kunzel

Quebec Symphony Orchestra/Simon Streatfeild, Francois Dompierre

Orchestra London Ontario/Eric Knight

Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra/Brian Law

Manitoba Chamber Orchestra/Simon Streatfeild

Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra/Richard Hayman

Hamilton Symphony Orchestra/Boris Brott

Venezuela:

Caracas Symphony Orchestra

Australia:

Australian Radio Orchestra, Sydney/John Hopkins

Return to the main Tommy Reilly Retrospective page

and the Harmonica Society Laakirchen, Austria

Summary – For over 30 years Walter Buchinger taught harmonica at the Musikschule in Laakirchen, Austria. He took groups of children to perform at festivals and concerts in Europe, Israel and the USA.

Walter was born in 1943 in Laakirchen. He learned to play harmonica and accordion and in 1963/64 he attended a seminar for music teachers in what is now the Hohner Konservatorium, in Trossingen, Germany. In 1973 Walter was teaching accordion in the local music school when he was asked to teach a harmonica course to beginners. He had no experience of teaching harmonica, but with the help of the Austrian Harmonica Association, Helmuth Herold, a professional chromatic player from Trossingen, Germany, agreed to do it. Helmuth taught beginners and advance students twice a year until the early 1990s. When Helmuth was no longer able to do it, Walter took over the classes.

The Landesmusikschule (LMS) was established in 1971. The teaching of harmonica (Mundharmonika) in the school was officially recognised in 1975 and classes started with four pupils. More soon followed. Other teachers wanted to learn to play and soon they had a harmonica group. In 1984 the current music school building was opened.

In 1985, the first school orchestra (Harmonicachoir) was formed. It had 20-25 teenage members and was led by Walter Buchinger and Margareta Rathner. The repertoire included original music for harmonica, classical and well known International popular music.

Soon they were playing concerts away from the school, beginning with one on Austrian TV. Their international appearances started with a harmonica festival in Innsbruck (Austria) in 1986, and in 1987 they performed at the Hohner 130th anniversary festival. Later that year they appeared in the first World Harmonica Championships in Jersey (Channel Islands), organised by Jim Hughes. They won the youth competitions (group and orchestra) and played in the evening concerts. This brought them worldwide recognition.

In 1988 they performed at the festival in Helmond (Holland). In 1989 they held an international festival in Laakirchen and were invited to the first of the new Hohner World Harmonica Festivals in Trossingen, Germany. They continued to take part in this four yearly festival until 2005.

The concerts continued with one in Beer Sheva (Israel) in 1990. In 1991 they released an LP containing pieces of music from their performances called ‘Our Music – Our World‘ (Unsere Musik – Unsere Welt).

1991 also brought the biggest journey for this group of children and adults when they took part in the SPAH/IHO festival in Detroit, (USA) again winning prizes in the solo, group and band categories.

Festivals followed in Portugal (1993), Austria (1994), Trossingen (1993,1996, 2001, 2005), and the IHO Millennium Festival in Bournemouth, UK (2001) where they again won many of the prizes and featured in the concerts.

When pupils left the music school many went on to form their own groups and solo careers.

Maria Wolfsberger – World Champion (1991-1993)
Trio Mahabri – Maria Wolfsberger, Johann Ortner/Thomas Stockhammer, Brigitte Laska (1989)
Mundharmonika Quartett Austria – Gerald Seyr, Hans Ortner, Brigitte Laska/Andrea Fränzel, Thomas Stockhammer
Harmonica Quintett Butterfly – Ingrid Schlögel, Lisa Fellinger, Maria Kuales, Joachim Plasser, Georg Kuales
Vigorous Quartett/Quintett – Mara Bachlechner, Anna Waldl / Martha Kreutzer, Judith Kreutzer, Marlene Hummelbrunner

Walter stopped teaching at the Music School in 2003 after 30 years in charge.

His last major performance with the harmonica orchestra was at the World Harmonica Festival in Trossingen, Germany, in 2005, where he conducted a group of 60 young and adult harmonica players.

Some harmonica teaching is still going on in the Music School led by Nicola Feichtinger and Olivia Winzer They are good teachers so the golden years may come again – we will see.

Walter is now in his 80s and enjoying his retirement. He continues to play with a group of senior players and has taught himself how to play the Chordomonica which was developed by Cham-ber Huang because of the chords it can play. With a growing family, house and garden he says he is the ‘chief cook and bottle washer‘ – a phrase he learned from his old friend Jim Hughes.

Walter always insists that the orchestra was a group activity with many school staff and parents providing help and support, especially on their many visits to foreign counties. There are far too many people to mention by name but please accept his thanks to all of you that you that contributed.

Here are the tracks from the LP released by Walter in 1991 of the orchestra playing some of their favourite light music and popular pieces.

Here are a couple of videos from the World Harmonica Festival in Jersey (UK) in 1987.

Scherzino

Puppet on a String

The Mundharmonikachor Laakirchen

This is the full performance of the Harmonica Society of Laakirchen, Austria, in the Evening Concert at the IHO Millenium Festival in Bournemouth (UK) in 2000, organised by John Walton.

The orchestra was composed of children from the music school, parents, helpers and teachers from the town.

Tag: orchestra

Tommy Reilly – International Harmonica Soloist

UK: