Derek Scott, born in Birmingham in 1950, has a long history of engagement with the British music hall and other forms of light entertainment, as both historian and performer. Many of his own compositions attest to this interest in popular styles, with his craftsmanship and natural feeling for a good tune producing music of immediate appeal. One of his two recent Dance Suites takes its cue from ska, the twist and other enthusiasms from the early 1960s, and the other from older dance favourites. Time was when works like Arthur Benjamin’s Jamaican Rumba and Percy Faith’s arrangement of Alfvén’s Swedish Rhapsody no.1 could be heard on every domestic radio and record-player; these good-natured Dance Suites recapture some of that lost innocence and its relaxed energy – but his Serenade, another recent composition, touches gently on deeper feelings.

“As in the previous volumes, Paul Mann and the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra make a most compelling case for these works, bringing clarity to the lines of the music and gracing them with rich and balanced sound. The disc and its presentation bring my warm recommendation all around to anyone interested in first-rate tonal British music.” – Huntley Dent, Fanfare Magazine, February 2024 (on Vol.3: TOCC0700)