On 8th July 2023 the Adelaide Morris Men will be celebrating the 141st birthday of Percy Aldridge Grainger, with a foot-up adjacent to his grave in the West Terrace Cemetery. This will be the seventh time this event has been held.
The Adelaide Morris Men will perform Shepherds Hey and other dances using Grainger’s music when they celebrate Grainger’s legacy from 12:30pm at the Duke of Brunswick and 2.00pm at the West Terrace Cemetery.
Whilst Percy Grainger was an internationally renowned composer and much of his work was experimental and unusual, he is best known for his piano arrangement of the folk-dance tune ‘Country Gardens’. Over the period 1905-1910 Grainger collected more than 300 songs from all over England. In 1906 he was one of the first collectors to use a phonograph and assembled a library of more than 200 Edison cylinder recordings of native English folk singers. He was composing at the same time as Ralph Vaughn Williams and Gustav Holst who were also using British folk tunes in their music.
As well as Country Gardens, Grainger’s other best-known pieces include ‘Mock Morris’, ‘Handel in the Strand’, ‘Shepherds Hey’ and ‘Molly on the Shore’. Grainger purchased ‘Country Gardens’ from Cecil Sharp in 1908 and fashioned it into a performable piece in 1918.
Grainger died in hospital in White Plains, New York on 20 February 1961, at the age of 78. His remains were buried in the Aldridge family vault in Adelaide’s West Terrace Cemetery, alongside his mother Rose’s ashes.
Although Percy Grainger was born in Melbourne, he lived most of his adult life in the United State of America, and became a US citizen in 1918. Grainger served as a bandsman during the First World War, but he retained a great affection for Australia. Grainger was much feted in the USA and developed a considerable following and acclaim. Following the tragic death of his much-loved mother Rose in 1922, he threw himself into a stellar career in the USA and Europe, where he met his wife to be Ella Strom, a Swedish born artist, and they were married in August 1928 at the Hollywood Bowl.
The Adelaide Morris Men was formed in 1979 by a number of folk-dance enthusiasts and have been dancing in and around South Australia, as well as other states and abroad. They dance traditional dancing originating in the Cotswolds Area in and around Oxford. They wear a outfit which consists of white trousers and shirts, red and white baldricks, top hats with a red and white band, and bells on the legs.
Further information can be found at:
http://www.morris.org.au
Enquiries should be directed to: amm.bagman [at] gmail.com,
or Gerry Butler on 0407 972149.
Picture from