Turn Around and Take a Bow
Thu 28 April 2022Leading musical director and TL alum Mike Dixon to publish book on life and career featuring fond memories of his conservatoire days
Musical Director, composer and arranger Mike Dixon studied piano at Trinity Laban (then Trinity College of Music) from 1975-1979.
Since graduating, he has enjoyed a successful career working extensively across theatre, TV, radio and live events. Credits include six Royal Variety Shows, Pop Idol and several West End productions such as We Will Rock You and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Now he is reflecting on his life and four-decade career in new book Turn Around and Take a Bow, due to be published 28 June 2022.
The biography includes a chapter revisiting his studies at Trinity Laban, with references to “colourful friends, brilliant teachers and the endless musical adventure”.
Dixon shares an excerpt –
“I played with many singers over my four years at Trinity [Laban] but very early on found myself playing Brahms Four Serious Songs and Elgar’s Sea Pictures with an extraordinary contralto called Lucy Coleby.
“We were playing in the Lecture Theatre of Trinity [Laban] where the concert grand was a nine-foot Bösendorfer with the extra notes at the bottom covered by a little black flap, still one of my favourite pianos. It was one of the regular Wednesday afternoon concerts in front of our peers and some invited guests.
“One of the special guests was a lady in her eighties, Gladys Puttick, who had been one of the most innovative and forward-thinking teachers of her generation. A veritable ‘Nadia Boulanger’ of Trinity [Laban] and highly revered. In her youth she had seen Brahms play and I was somewhat stunned when she quietly came over to me after the concert and whispered that my playing was like hearing Brahms himself at the piano. Antony Lindsay standing beside me beamed with pride, his elegant coaching and patient advice had paid off.”
It promises to paint a vivid picture of life at Mandeville Place, the former home of the conservatoire before it’s relocation to Greenwich.
The autobiography will be available from Troubador publishing.