Graham Dalby

Who is Graham Dalby?

Graham James Dalby – – is an English composer, conductor, band leader and vocalist, now specialising in Jazz Age Swing music from 1911 to 1965. In 1987 he established and led Graham Dalby and the Grahamophones. They have performed worldwide, recreating the sound and the look of the Golden Era of British dance band music. Since 1987 he has led the London Swing Orchestra as they are now known.

Graham Dalby was educated at Dover College, UK, and was commissioned in The Royal Hong Kong Police in 1977. He made his professional debut as a singer there as Christus in The Bach St Matthew Passion with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra in a live broadcast by RTHK on Easter Day 1978. He returned to London in 1980 to study singing and conducting at Trinity College of Music. During this time Dalby formed The Student Singers and Orchestra and gave many large scale choral concerts around London including Mozart Requiem, Beethoven Mass in C and Haydn's Oratorio The Creation with BBC's Brian Kay singing the bass solo. In 1984 Dalby conducted a large scale gala concert at The Royal Albert Hall of works by Elgar, Richard Strauss and Tchaikovsky in aid of World Wildlife Fund. In 1985 Dalby joined two professional music groups. The first, Nexus Opera toured Britten's opera Curlew River including a televised broadcast from Wells Cathedral for the Bath Festival and a BBC Radio 3 broadcast live from The Royal Albert Hall Proms. The second, Martin Best Medieval Ensemble, recorded Cantigas de Santa Maria for Nimbus Records and toured festivals in Britain including Salisbury Cathedral and St Alban's Abbey. That same year he was invited to perform as soloist with Serge Baudot and The Orchestre de Lyons in a broadcast performance of Traite d'orchestration et d'instrumentation for The Berlioz Festival at the Lyons Opera. From 1995 – 2005 Dalby was a member of several professional singing groups and recorded many BBC and film sessions such as Hans Zimmer's Crimson Tide and The Peacemaker, Evita with Madonna and even The Muppet Treasure Island. He recorded more than one hundred and fifty sessions with The Ambrosian Opera Chorus of recordings as varied as Kiss Me Kate for EMI to Semiramide with I Solisti Veneti for Erato Records.