Extra footage of Ancestor featuring on one of the first music film clips in Australia
The music film clip you just watched wasn’t made to be screened on television. This was years before. It was a little feature, screened before the main film for people going to ‘the pictures’. It was actually one of the first music films in Australia and was first screened in 1931 at the Regent Theatre in Collins Street along with the main feature, Diggers. The short feature Diggers, was the first film made by the father of Australian cinema, Francis William Thring (1883-1936), also known as Frank Thring Senior with the latest RCA optical sound equipment he imported to Australia from the United States.
Cecil Parkes accompanied by his wife May on piano, and Christine Fraillon on cello, formed the Strad Trio and soon became regular concert favourites. Their performances were a regular feature of the programme at the Athenaeum Theatre right up into the 1950s. They also played regularly on ABC radio broadcasts.
The man playing violin was Cecil Parkes. His brother, Milton, was my grandfather. Cecil Parkes was my great uncle.
The fact is, I never met him and I grew up knowing very little about him or his musical talents until very recently. When I was shown this film from Cecil’s daughter Margaret Griffiths (nee Parkes) and granddaughter Katherine Griffiths, I was totally moved and felt a sense of place, a music heritage and lineage and understanding of what has been the driving force for me to perform music.
Seeing this film inspired me to create the Albums Virtuoso 1 and 2 to celebrate the music that my Grandfather and Great Uncles would have performed in their day and transpose the complex classical music to be performed on guitar which was quite a feat. With some pieces I strung 8 different guitar tracks together, representing the full orchestra and solo parts or the original music.
As a THANK YOU for being one of my subscribers I want to give you a sample of a multitracked song from the album Virtuoso for free – no strings attached. Pardon the pun.
Download my version of Vivaldi’s Spring by clicking here
If you like the track you might also consider checking out El Vito. It’s my latest album and it’s full of Spanish Classical and flamenco Guitar tunes some of which would have been in my Ancestor’s repertoire including songs from Carmen that I have loved performing for decades.
I hope you have enjoyed learning about my Musical Heritage
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