Belinda Hatley, one of the finest Ashtonian dancers of recent years, used to perform Symphonic with an almost secretive radiance.
It was a hugely expensive project, a mixture of jazz, rock, symphonic, with fantastic people on it – Bill Medley, Paul Williams – and some great jazz musicians.
Being given a tomato-juice bath after being sprayed by a skunk, "Arden is positively symphonic with scent, like that fantasy creation of the decadent symbolist des Esseintes, in Huysman's 19th-century novel, the perfume organ".
With the exception of the not-too-venomous Scorpions, these German bands showed little flair for blues basics, and many artier groups simply proved that combining symphonic with Teutonic was bad for rocking out.
Bo Bell's sound design mixes the liturgical with the symphonic, with the purely classical providing apt scoring for Kurt Rhoads' necessary duplicities as the real Duke and the disguised Friar.
Although I've done it, touring was always a challenge since my music is symphonic with big production (read: expensive).
