Aspidistra Drawing Room Orchestra

A concert of popular music from the beginning of the last century. Performed in style by this authentic ensemble consisting of string quartet, piano flute and oboe, praised for their lively interpretation of the genre.

The Aspidistra Drawing Room Orchestra is an orchestra that specialises in the type of light classical music that is usually referred to as "Palm Court Music" or "Salon Music". In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there was an enormous appetite for light music. The Aspidistra Drawing Room Orchestra started, from very small beginnings: a group of friends and a folder of music. However, since the mid 1990s, they have steadily expanded their repertoire, continually hunting for new material.
Aspidistra made their Radio debut when the BBC used some tracks from the Best of Palm Court as background music for the radio play Tears of War on Remembrance Day 2002. Since then their recordings have been heard regularly on Brian Kay's light programme and as background music for other radio plays. Their music was also used for The Producer Prince, a TV documentary based on interviews with Prince Alessandro Tasca di Cuto, the son of an illustrious Sicilian family. Sadly his father squandered the family fortunes and died penniless in 1927.