The official Malcolm Arnold website has announced a new performance of Concerto For Group & Orchestra. This will form a centrepiece of the 2007 Malcolm Arnold Festival which will be held at the Royal & Derngate Theatre, in the composer’s hometown of Northampton, over the weekend of October 6/7 2007. The gala evening concert planned for the main auditorium on Sunday 7th will see Paul Mann conduct Jon Lord and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in a special recreation of the original Deep Purple/RPO concert at the Albert Hall. Jon will play the keyboards, and according to an advert in the Guardian newspaper, Roger Glover wil also be taking part.

The evening is currently structured to run as follows:

• Jon Lord : Masque (Jon's musical portrait of Sir Malcolm from his Disguises piece).
• Sir Malcolm Arnold : Symphony No.6 (as performed back in 1969).
• Interval
• Jon Lord : Concerto for Group and Orchestra

SR#jl7002155. Thanks to Richard Breese, Bill Bass and David Meadows for details.

Roger Glover has announced that the basic recording work on his next solo album (provisionally titled Close Up) is more or less finished, and he hopes to have this finished towards the end of the year for release next. Randall Bramblett is again on vocals, and Gillian Glover is also featured (as well as co-writing some of the material). This will be the follow-up to his last album Snapshot, released in 2002.

SR#700175 (photo: Martin Ashberry)

Roger Glover is one of a number of stars donating material for an upcoming charity auction in aid of the Linda McCartney Centre in Liverpool. Roger has offered a one-off painting as well as tickets for the April UK tour. Ian Gillan has sent a signed copy of his new monograph "Smoke This". The items will be shown on a special site where people can bid for them and we will forward details of this as soon as we have them. Other bits and pieces may surface as this is an ongoing fund raising event.

THE signed limited edition prints are available for sale at a cost of £80 plus p&p by calling 0151 706 3153, or visiting www.yourcentre.org/news.html and clicking on World Famous Rock Guitarist Visits The Linda McCartney Centre or Charity art Exhibition headlines. (Thanks to Leslie Worrall)

SR#7001712  photo: Tonny Steenhagen

Prog rockers Dream Theater took a leaf from Deep Purple's book a while ago and toured a cover version of the entire Made In Japan album. In a twist to the story, a recording of the show was made and  has been mixed by Roger Glover. It will be issued in early May 2007.
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SR#700174
photo: Alexei Zaikin

Vigier Guitars in France has announced the release of an Excess Roger Glover signature bass. The model features an Excess alder body with a maple top, phosphorescent dots on the fingerboard and brand new three-band EQ electronics. Still time to change your christmas gift list... You can find out more at vigierguitars.com.

SR#700172 (thanks to Mike Garrett)
photo: Manfred Stoffer

We have had a lot of requests for information on an advertised release in America only of The Butterfly Ball on DVD. We have not posted any details because we were not sure that all necessary permissions had been granted for this, and we have now been advised that there are problems which may well lead to it being cancelled.

Roger Glover has now posted a long and detailed piece about the project and the DVD on his web site. Amongst other things he says the people responsible for the DVD release have muddled him and Glenn Hughes up (Deep Purple bassist - see?) so you get a large photo of Glenn on the inside and spine! Needless to say he's not overjoyed about the release. As it's out, we assume the attempts to stop the title coming out have so far been unsucessful.   SR#700170 (Thanks to Andreas Thul)