The Menagerie

1983 Christmas Gala Barbican Menagerie

In 1981 Julius formed the hugely popular “Menagerie” with his friend, the oboeist Nicholas Daniel. Menagerie was an entertainment with an animal theme incorporating music and words, which they always presented with a guest artist. Over the next decade or so their guest artists included narrators Richard Baker, Johnny Morris, Timothy West, Prunella Scales, John Julius Norwich, Arthur Lowe, and singers Simon Keenlyside, Sally Burgess, Sue Bickley, to name but a few.

To quote their promotional pamphlet…

“The Menagerie is a concert – a concert that is presented as an entertainment – and the animal world is the inspiration for this kaleidoscope of music and readings.

Nicholas Daniel and Julius Drake, two of Britain’s most talented young musicians, invite a guest to join them for each ‘Menagerie’ concert, (a few of those who have appeared with them are pictured on this page) and together they compile a programme of instrumental pieces, songs, poems and prose. The range and scope is unlimited – Purcell to Cole Porter, Dryden to Roald Dahl, Schubert to Igor Stravinsky – and the great success of The Menagerie has stemmed from the variety and charm of the programming, each concert built around their guest and tailored to the particular venue and audience.

The Menagerie has been presented for leading Music Festivals and Arts Associations all over Great Britain; it has been seen on BBC1 television [Pebble Mill] and heard on BBC radio 3; special programmes have been devised for arts centres and colleges and the guest artists, some of our leading performers, have included Elizabeth Harwood at the Barbican, Timothy West at the Fishguard Festival, John Mark Ainsley at Berkeley Castle and Richard Baker at the Wigmore Hall.”

Composer Daniel Chua recalls that in 1982, Menagerie “… were giving concerts made up entirely of animal pieces and I was asked to compose something suitable; I had to choose an animal for their musical menagerie… and I chose The Fish in Water.” [Double Reed News No.21, November 1992]. Composer Francis Pott was also commissioned to write a comic recital piece for oboe and piano: Zanzare Fanfare. A mortal combat for human (piano) and bug (oboe), to the memory of a night in a hotel bedroom beside Lake Como, 1983

Their 1985-86 season included a Scottish Arts Council Tour, and in autumn 1986 a tour for South West Arts. One of their most entertaining engagements was at “The Menagerie”, once the private zoo of the Earl of Halifax.