Tommy Reilly

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Tommy Reilly (born August 21, 1919 in Guelph , Ontario , † September 25, 2000 in Frensham , Surrey , UK ) was a Canadian musician and played chromatic harmonica and violin .

Life

His father was a conductor, jazz musician and founder of the Elmdale Harmonica Band. Reilly began playing the violin at the age of eight and began playing the harmonica a few years later. In 1935 the family moved to England. Shortly before the Second World War he toured the vaudeville shows in Europe as a harmonica player and was held in internment camps as a citizen of an opponent of war in the German Reich . During this time he developed the classical way of playing the harmonica and thus opened up the instrument for classical music as well . After 1945 he became a well-known man on the radio across Britain . He became a sought-after harmonica soloist for classical concerts all over the world. As early as 1951, Michael Spivakovsky composed a concert for harmonica for him on the occasion of a British music festival. Since then, 30 more works by well-known composers have been dedicated to him, e. B. Gordon Jacob , Ralph Vaughan Williams, and James Moody . For players of the chromatic harmonica he wrote the basic theory book "Play Like the Stars". In 1992 he was made a member of the Order of the British Empire .

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