Derek Scott, born in Birmingham in 1950, has an international reputation as an historian of the British music hall and other forms of light entertainment. But he is an outstanding composer in his own right – a master craftsman and natural tunesmith, who manages to unite good humour, unerring technique and deep feeling in music of immediate appeal. Although the works recorded here represent his most recent harvest of orchestral music, for many of them he revisited material composed earlier in his career, using it as the basis for a series of new scores, some exhibiting a very English sense of whimsy, others concerned with deeper matters – one, indeed, inspired by the war in Ukraine. This album has been released with remarkable speed: it was recorded only on 15–18 May 2023.

“Professor Scott’s use of the winds, brass and percussion is masterly, lending vibrant colour to his scores ... memorable tunes are the strong point of all these compositions.” – MusicWeb International, October 2022 (TOCC0646: Orchestral Music Vol.2)