The arrangement

In 1996 I (Justin) sat in the Welcome Inn in Rusholme with a few friends. We were discussing ideas behind putting on updated and modernised versions of G&S shows. The idea is by no means a new one, as there has been "'Broadway' Pirates", and "The Hot Mikado" to name the best known examples.

The idea to do Trial by Jury struck me then as being a good one, as it is the shortest of the G&S operettas, and would be well within my technical abilities to do something interesting with. It would be perfect for MUGSS to perform as a second show, as it would be short and presumably easy to come up with a bunch of ideas. It would be a lot of fun to write, and hopefully a lot of fun to perform as well. I ran out and bought the Chappel score and pretty quickly came up with a "proof of concept" – turning "When first my old, old love I knew" into a straight Rock'n'Roll number based loosely around Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode".

The idea for a fully fledged show was born, and given the extremely pretentious working title of "Trial By Jury – the Rock Opera" – the idea of doing a pompous Rock Opera based around a G&S show always struck me as being very amusing, even though this description doesn't go any way to adequately describing the finished product. As a kind of short hand it has also been referred to as "Rock Trial".

(Rock and) Roll forwards almost a decade, and the idea was in danger of being treated as something of a joke: my grand project which I would never ever get around to completing. I had let the whole idea fall by the wayside a little, as other projects came and went. In the meantime I had gathered a fair bit of experience writing and arranging music, playing in the band in shows, and of course, MD'ing MUGSS.

A combination of factors triggered off the process of dusting off my old work and completing it, and in the last year I finally finished off the arrangement which will in the most part constitute the actual show.

The Show

What does it sound like then? Well, a complete and utter stylistic mish-mash of ideas thrown hastily together would probably describe it. I've no idea how it will come across live – we will have our opportunity to find this out when it gets its premiere in November 2005.

What will it look like? This will be the decision of the appointed Director and their Production team. The show is still "Trial by Jury" despite my messing around with the music, and open to the same conceptual vision that the original would be. I'd like to see lots of big dance numbers though. That's not a definite requirement, just a personal preference.

The Music

The arrangement is for:

• Alto Sax (plus optional Clarinet)
• Bb Trumpet
• Trombone
• 1xKeys
• 1xGuitar (plus optional Mandolin)
• 1xBass Guitar
• 1xDrum Kit

I wrote all the arrangements with a guitar in my hand, and as such, it sounds like the kind of arrangement a guitarist would write – lots of cool riffs and guitar solos. I have used the brass quite densely thoughout, and these parts are key to the harmonic underpinning of the show, not just for the kind of embellishment you normally see in modern shows.

The words are completely unchanged, so Gilbert may rest in peace. Sullivan on the other hand will be shifting rather uncomfortably; I have left 80 percent of his melodies untouched, changing them occasionally to tortuosly fit them to a new regime e.g. to make a harmonic progression work in the relative minor (whatever that means). The rhythms have been blasted into tiny pieces using heavy artillery. 6/8 is not very Rock'n'Roll, and most of the show currently happens to bounce along in this time signature. The styles range from Country and Western through Disco/Funk, Reggae and Blues to a bizarre Tango. However I'm sure to the ears of fans of those respective genres, the songs will sound like 19th Century Opera played with a drumkit.

I have also taken the liberty of adding a short Overture for a few reasons:

• so the audience has a little moment to overcome the shock of hearing a band not an orchestra or piano
• the show is short and I'm sure people won't mind being held back from the bar for an extra 3 minutes to indulge my artistic pretensions.
• it was immense fun to write
• to cheekily use some musical 'jokes', which I couldn't crowbar in elsewhere.

I have learned a great deal arranging this show:

• That it is hard to write an arrangement of a show
• That once you have finished writing it, you haven't actually finished. Not even close.
• That musicians are very particular how they want to read music parts which will mean you probably have to write out their parts again.
• That I absolutely hate writing out parts again.
• We still have a mountain to climb to turn this into a show

But on the positive side:

• That despite the authors being dead for 100 years, you can ALWAYS find something new to do with somebody else's piece of work, when the source material is so utterly rich and brimming with potential.
• Other people's enthusiasm for your wacky projects is exciting and inspiring
• If you have the idea to do something you think may be cool, why not approach MUGSS? You never know what may happen...

Justin Morley
31/05/2005