it's been a while.

 It's been over a years since my last blog so to anyone who has been waiting with bated breath for the latest musings from my  racing fingers my apologies and you need bate your breath no more,

Before i start I promise I will return to 'My Life , The Universe and Other stuff ' in the very near future. 

In 2017 I retired, We'd thought about buying a small place and settling down,  Ancsa wanted to live in Wales I preferred Scotland but we got an offer we couldn't refuse to go to Germany and with Brexit impending and FOM with its travel restrictions being part of the deal I wasn't happy about staying around so Germany was a good idea.

A couple of days ago I celebrated 76 years on this small blue planet on the edge of the Milky way Galaxy from which I draw the conclusion that theres more behind me than in front and it's a sobering thought, 

My last blog was about working during the pandemic to an online only audience at the Budapest Capitol Circus , If you are interested you can scroll back and read the article it was published on June 3 2021.

After the Dynasty shows Ancsa and I worked for the Hungarian Museum of Circus Arts on an ad-hoc basis, I was asked to do some research and writing about Circus in General for entry into the Library archives and a little while later Ancsa was seconded to the main Circus building helping to prepare the 2022 Budapest Circus Festival a job she excelled at and as a result she was kept on in the Circus office as an assistant to the direction and I continued writing. 

2021 October I was asked by Fekete Peter the Hungarian Capitol Circus director who at the time was the Hungarian Culture Minister to assist in arranging a special conference on European Circus Buildings and suggest people that I thought would have knowledge of the subject and be available to attend.

The conference was to be a Gala event opening the 2022 Budapest Circus Festival taking place in mid January,  the venue was the imposing Museum of Fine Arts on Hero Square and over the next few hectic weeks a stellar line up of experts was assembled and the  Conference, the first of its kind anywhere in the world, got under way.

The UK was represented by  Chris Barltrop and Dr Steven Ward, 

from France :-Dr Alan Frere, 

Jean Arnaud and Dominique Denis,

Pascal Jacob ( on Zoom)

Mr Gilles Maignant 

from Bulgaria :-Dragomir Draganov

From Canada:-Prof; Paul Bouissac (also on Zoom)

From Hungary :- 

Ms Anna Klara Andor

Ms Fanni Farkas

Mr Mihaly Szecsenyi

The museum was decorated with models, moquettes and images of circus buildings past ands present with a special presentation of the proposed new Circus Structure for the Hungarian Capitol Circus,  all researched and put together by the Hungarian circus museum director Mrs Joo Emese who over recent years has gathered a plethora of costumes, props and other artefacts from all the major Hungarian Circus families and Artists all of which are now in an air conditioned temperature controlled facility awaiting the construction of the Hungarian Circus Arts Museum where they will be displayed. I am happy to say that a large contribution from the Könyöt Family will be among that collection.

A couple of weeks before the conference took place the Circus director asked if I would be the moderator for the conference , that took me by surprise as I don't speak Hungarian too well, but an instant translation service was employed along with the TV, Radio and Video  transmission companies which meant that I could happily use my native language.

The conference was a huge success and created world wide interest form Circus historians and academics the world over.

in 2022 I was awarded the Hungarian Silver Cross for my lifetime contribution to Hungarian and International Circus, a great Honour and a deeply moving moment which I, in my heart, dedicated to the Könyöt family whose examples of excellence throughout the years have always inspired me to maintain those high standards in my own working life. 

Since then a lot has happened , Following the Dynasty shows  we went on tour with the 'Magyar Nemzetközi Utazó Nagycirkusz', owned and run by the Adam Rudolf family who had  had also appeared in the Dynasty shows with their various and impressive acts which included Krisztian Adam on the High Wire , Rudolf Adam jnr with his Juggling act, Angelina Adam on her high school horse and the family all together with a Juggling on Horseback presentation that brought back memories of Gaby Donnert in his heyday.They are  extremely talented reminiscent of the Circus families of old, self contained and driven by their work ethic.

In 2022 we bought a small house with a little land south of Budapest near the Danube which will keep me busy for the foreseeable future

2022/3 Xmas season we were at the Ulm WeinachtCircus, good show with very good business, I enjoy working in  Germany always an appreciative audience,

April 2023 we started work at the Casselly Family's 'Kimba Elephant Park' in Gyor near the border with Austria. Lili was asked to produce a Western show for the park as an addition to the attractions already there which included Pedersens Sealions and Rene Casselly with an Elephant display. 

Thats it for this one.

 Music is emotional ,it has the power to inspire , to make you laugh , to make you cry, it leads armies into battle , accompanies the dead on their last journey , according to Congreve “music hath charms to soothe the savage breast , to soften rocks or bend a knotted oak” Powerful stuff indeed and thats before you add lyrics.   Good writing can,  and has ,changed the world so when a composer and a lyricist get together their boundaries are endless  , Musicals , Operas  , Country and Western  , Rock ,Pop, Grunge , Grind , Garage , Punk, a million  possibilities  and with modern technology as many ways to listen .Music is with us 24/7 Every high street , Every store, Every shopping centre , on trains, on buses ,in Taxis, even in a lift  we are bombarded with a constant wall of sound .   

                   And then there is CIRCUS !

  My earliest experience of music for Circus was  around the mid '50's on a circus belonging to some relation of ours , because the previous 'Musician', and I use the term very loosely , had left I ended up sitting on a stool behind a snare drum and Cymbal next to  a panatrope , the original name for a record player  , The 78rpm  discs were in order and before  each act  I would pick the next one from the pile put it  on the player start it and accompany it with the snare drum , even though during my career I managed to master many Instruments, Drums were not among them , luckily the music was either a basic3 /4  waltz or a 4/4 swing . The least problem was getting the discs mixed up , the acts were unfazed by the music, they just performed took their bow and went off ,  This was , of course , a small family Circus with the  sole ambition  to survive , the bigger shows had proper bands dressed in military style uniforms , a throwback to earlier times when that style of music was the only choice.

Jumping forward to the '70's After a decade of performing my own musical comedy act in theatres I went back to my Circus roots and slowly I started producing individual acts and a little later full shows ,I knew that in the modern era Music and lighting had taken on a whole new role in Circus  , it could enhance or diminish a performer  and a wrong choice could affect the atmosphere of the show itself .  My first one  was for two sisters and their Corde' Lise act , two ropes hanging from the roof of the  big top on which they performed a display of acrobatic and aerial skills , we choreographed it to  version of  Gershwin's ' Rhapsody in Blue edited to 6 minutes with the girls routines being perfectly synchronised to each other and the music which could be played live or from a cassette tape which many shows had started using  , The entrance , the act and the exit  were performed In one fluid movement , no pauses for applause in between tricks or moves until they reached the curtains at the end ,whereupon they turned ,looked at the audience and just slightly bowed their heads , because we had not let the audience show their appreciation for individual tricks   the reaction was tremendous. 

I then put a more acts together with some success , I was usually given the job of putting the show together on whatever show I was in  at the time ,this would be a basic running order with an opening and a finale normally done to some march or other but I had very little control over the music or general production .

The first time I put a complete show together from start to finish was Circus Harlequin in the early '90's ,I then realised that doing an individual act was rewarding  but now I wanted the music to do something different, it had to convey  a theme and a mood  , each act and the comedy had to link together to present a complete package to the audience , We still had live music but there was also more technology , mini discs !!! my scope was bigger and together  with the Owner Martin Lacey, the chief Airealist Larry de Wit and our 'Band ' organist Dave and drummer Phil we  produced a ground breaking show , I will highlight two acts .

Sue Lacey  , Martins wife was small , Blonde and an excellent wild animal trainer , she presented a group of tigers and  the lights and the music were used to enhance an already  excellent performance , Blue lights and Ravels 'Bolero ' played with a combination of live and recorded music so that it sounded like a full orchestra produced an act of such quality and class that I am still reminded of it many years later by those who saw it .

The second example was the aerial cradle act of Larry De Wit and his partner Georgia , I had the idea of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet  so we started with a voiceover of “ But soft, what light through yonder window breaks , 'tis the east and juliet is the sun”  during which the spotlight picked up georgia ( Juliet) on the cradle frame in the roof of the big top , her  long white dress in the shape of a tube ( the light from yonder window ) flowed to the ground masking a rope ladder which Larry ( Romeo) climbed , I was then presented with a dilemma , there were three music options   Prokofiev , Tchaikovsky and Bernstein's  'West Side Story '( the last  however would have meant significant changes in presentation`)
 In the end I chose Prokofiev as it seemed the perfect combination of the other two with both old and modern themes .
There is another version by Berlioz but it didn't fit the criteria I needed .

I went on to produce  other shows in the UK ,and in 2001 along with Ancsa we produced a new German Circus show called  “Manege “ .

   Over the last twenty years  I am noticing different trends In Circus music , with the majority of shows having no live music and relying only on  digital music players both they and the performer are presented with some problems , for instance if a juggler drops a club or a ball , a flying trapeze artist misses a trick and has to climb back up to retry this changes the timing , a live band can and usually  did adapt to the change , nowadays even with the wonderful editing options on your PC media app  a digital player can't do that so other solutions have to be found , this sometimes  means compromising  between  the choice of music in the knowledge  that  the performance has to be perfect every time  which is extremely difficult to accomplish , or you pick music that is not your first choice  but lets you have a little room to manoeuvre  if something goes wrong .
 Some artists coming from Circus Schools  leave with a finished act , Lighting cues , music, props etc all done and dusted which is fine until they get to a show where someone else has the same music .
 Other  problems can arise when you make your music  choice too personal , you pick a song because you like it without thinking of what is best for your act and the reaction of the audience . 

Picking a currently popular song is also a danger as songs go out of fashion as quickly as they come in .
When 'Love is in the air ' came out in '77 nearly every horse act in european circus  used it , the Superman theme was taken by  a myriad of male aerial acts and Star Wars was used by everyone  from jugglers to clowns  .
I have used various tunes in my capacity as a Musical Clown but always finished with a  March this was and still is a bit traditional even though there are very few Musical Clown acts around any more  .

 There has never been a great deal of Music written especially for circus , Originally military music was used hence the Band Uniforms , in the 20's 30' and 40's  the lack of widespread  access to  music, relying on  radio and phonographs , limited the options for performers . Nowadays Cirque du Soleil use all original music for their shows but the lyrics are in a language of their own composing and are special to each particular performance or show , I can only think of a couple of Soleil tunes that have made it into wider Circus use.
'Salto Mortale ' is a well known circus march used  for openings or finales and the Monte Carlo Circus Festival has it's own theme tune , some artists through the years  have had  their music specially written but again it's a small number .

Finally What I have noticed throughout my time is that audiences are somehow empathic to the music used in a performance, they instinctively know if it's right or wrong , If, after a show you asked them why, they couldn't tell you, but they know and if the audience is happy you've done your job and thats all that matters.