Thursday 6th November 2025 at The Henley Rugby Club.10.00am - 3.00pm. (Booking Thursday 18th September 2025). cost £45.00. Coffee from 10.00am. 1st lecture 10.45am - 11.45am. 2nd lecture 12.00pm - 1.00pm. Sandwich lunch 1.00pm - 2.00pm. 3rd lecture 2.00pm - 3.00pm approximately. Free parking. For more information on all Special Interest Days please contact Diana Jones on diana.jones@btinternet.com or 0118 947 8762/mobile 07799 661 459.
John Snelson
SPECIAL INTEREST DAY Stage musicals have long been a source of some of the most well-known and lasting popular songs. This day explores how these hit songs spread from the stage into shared culture. Using sound, video and live demonstration/performance from the keyboard, examples range from Edwardian musical comedy and Broadway classics to the concert hall, jazz clubs and the pop charts. Such famous creators as Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Noel Gay, Lionel Bart, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Stephen Sondheim feature in this celebration of musical theatre on stage and beyond. In addition to audio and video playback through PowerPoint, a piano (acoustic or digital) for demonstration and performance is important.
Most of his work has revolved around helping people discover what is so fascinating and engaging in music and particularly in musical theatre and opera. His talks and lectures are all about sharing discoveries and passion, especially if there is a piano on hand for demonstrations.
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John Snelson has been fascinated by musicals all his life and is a leading expert in British musical theatre (the subject of his PhD). His publications include Reviewing the Situation: The British Musical from Noël Coward to Lionel Bart (Bloomsbury), How to Enjoy Opera (Oberon/Bloomsbury), Andrew Lloyd Webber (Yale University Press) and chapters in many authoritative reference works. He is especially known for exploring musicals – British and American – in the light of not just the music and the stage, but society and culture to reveal what makes them so appealing, enduring and important. He is well known as a writer and speaker on all aspects of the lyric stage – musicals, opera, ballet – and has written many programme articles for leading companies in the UK and abroad. John has given talks for, among others, the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, the Garsington and Glyndebourne festivals and for BBC radio. For twenty years he worked for the Royal Opera House. He currently lectures at Goldsmiths, University of London.