In July, Jon Lord was made honorary Doctor of Music at Leicester University

Happy New Year to all of you, our visitors here at Jon’s website.

2011 was by no means an ordinary year for any of us. Here’s a look at how his website fared through it all.

JonLord.org was viewed about 400,000 times in 2011. 

London Olympic Stadium holds 80,000 people. So if we were competing there, it would take about 5 sold-out events for that many people to see us. Thank you all.

Not surprisingly, August 10th was our busiest day with 15,530 views for our most read post – A Message from Jon.

Since then, you guys have posted more than 1.000 kind and loving messages to Jon, for which he has already thanked you. It is all very heart warming and inspiring.

Our most read articles in 2011
1. A Message from Jon - August 2011
2. Jon: Your responses have touched my heart – August 2011
3. Jon Lord releases orchestral live album – August 2011
4. Lord & Wakeman world premiere at Sunflower Jam – July 2011
5. Jon Lord Blues Project release live CD – July 2011

Where do you all come from?
Most of you come from Germany with United Kingdom and USA not far behind.

But we get visitors from every corner of the world; Japan, Greenland, Mexico, Iran, South Africa, Brazil, Russia, etc, etc. You are all very welcome here.

How do you find us?
Our top referring sites in 2011 were:
• facebook.com
• thehighwaystar.com
• picturedwithin.com
• en.wikipedia.org
• de.wikipedia.org

Want to say something?
Thank you all for your continued support. Remember, you can keep up with us via Facebook, Twitter and our RSS-feed (links top right).

Your messages to Jon, to this website, and your opinions and thoughts in general are welcome in the comments box below.

With the best wishes for 2012.

I have been mightily sustained by reading them and will continue to be so. You are a very special lot indeed.

I am doing well and I will be back with more news and updates in the next week or so. In the meantime, party hearty but look after yourselves.

I wish you success and happiness, and above all I wish you health.

God bless

Jon

Do you want to see Jon’s music performed at the prestigious BBC Proms in 2012?

Then please sign the petition at The Petition Site.

This is the initiative of one of Jon’s fans, Elinor Bostock. We support it here on Jon’s website and at his management.

Jon has not made a comment.

When Classic Rock Awards recently honoured Deep Purple with The Innovator Award, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover and Ian Paice were there to accept the award.

Ian Paice read out this message from Jon:

I very much wanted to be there this evening to stand with these fine chaps - my musical companions of more than forty years and indeed my friends for a lifetime – but, although my progress is really good, I am finding that the treatment I am undergoing often leads me more towards a cup of cocoa and an early night than to a bottle of red wine with it’s accompanying table-full of wonderfully scurrilous gossipmongers and joke-tellers.

May I add my heartfelt thanks for this award and for recognising that what we did - when we were just five brave lads with no regard for boundaries but with an abiding love of writing and playing music – was indeed innovative. It was also loud, down and dirty, subversive and dangerous, intricate and yet often blindingly simple, very exciting to play and above all else it was astonishingly good fun - and yes we did “dance and sing and stand on a mountaintop.” Didn’t we just.

My heartfelt thanks too to the gentlemen on the stage for being part of changing my life and for playing like heroes. Oh, and please don’t forget who first bullied them into playing with an orchestra!

I’ll see you down the road somewhere.

God bless.

Jon Lord

Photo: Ian Gillan, Ian Paice and Roger Glover at the Classic Rock Awards, © Foruli Publications

The new Bucharest DVD + CD are now shipping, as is the new Jon Lord With Pictures official documentary DVD – updated with new 2011 content.

Also available are t-shirts and Jon’s solo albums.

Prices include postage – remember to choose your country.

Go to Jon Lord’s web shop.

The DVD was filmed in Bucharest, Romania on November 5, 2009 and features the full second half of Jon’s concert that night.

It includes tracks from Sarabande, Pictured Within, Beyond The Notes – as well as three Deep Purple favourites rearranged by Jon Lord for full symphony orchestra.

Coinciding with this DVD release, Jon Lord’s Webshop has also launched its Christmas Sale with massive discounts on several of Jon Lord’s other solo projects.

You also get 50% off the Bucharest CD if you buy it now with the new DVD.

Visit Jon Lord’s Webshop

Review by Rasmus Heide

A gorgeous, contemplative 25-minute prayer piece for choir, piano and strings, From Darkness To Light engulfs the mature crowd of concert goers at Nürnberg’s Meistersingerhalle on Sunday night.

2011 has been a stunning year for Jon; several Blues Project shows; a stack of Concerto concerts in Europe and Russia; a victorious Sunflower Jam at London’s Royal Albert Hall (complete with fierce bluesrock jam with Joe Bonamassa, a buoyant Bourree, the deeply personal beauty of Pictured Within and much more); and most recently a preciously delicate presentation of To Notice Such Things at a small rural church in Sussex…

This vast display of musical brilliance is broadened even further tonight in Nürnberg as he adds a choir piece to his resume. This unreleased music is – again – a new flavour from him, and one that he masters with underplayed excellence.

100 singers
On and evening dedicated to the betterment of the world, infusing the listeners with an urge to pause and ponder our lost opportunities of the past, Karl Jenkins‘ The Armed Man, A Mass For Peace – complete with accompanying archival war footage – is an overwhelming and unrelenting illustration of the enormous effort humans invest in killing each other.

In stark contrast to this, Jon Lord’s piece opens the evening as a tribute to – and wish for – optimism.

Performed to musical perfection by the Lehrersingerverein Choir and the Nürnberg Symphonic Orchestra under the seasoned direction of Bernd Dietrich, solo tenor Thomas Fahner at the edge of the stage is competent and aware of fulfilling his role as leading voice in front of the approximately 100 strong choir.

The alert stillness in the audience speaks volumes of the glorious qualities in Jon’s music – its inner peace and the deep reflectiveness it inspires – and at the end, the energy released in a persistent ovation sends warm waves of respect and well wishes in Jon’s direction. (continued under photo)

Spiritual presence
But Jon is not here in person. On top of all the musical brilliance, 2011 has also dealt him a dragon to be slain – cancer – and experiencing this choir piece – which in essence is one long prayer – with that personal battle in mind, underscores Jon’s life reaffirming ability to evoke emotions and display scenery in the minds of his listeners.

Opening with a tingle, growing and swelling with the choir, From Darkness To Light induces thoughtfulness and a strong calm of mind. As the music rises and fades, the choir goes from softly carressing in the background to majestically throwing itself to the fore in a rush of gusto.

Jon’s spiritual presence is vivid. Closing one’s eyes, you can picture him within the music, sat at the grand piano center stage, his right shoulder slightly raised during intense moments, always keeping a watchful eye on the conductor and ear on the music.

From Darkness To Light shines with hope, and – as Jon says in the programme ‘it would be great if the music could move people.’ It certainly did. Thank you, Jon, and we will see you soon.

Zermattitis

Taking its name from the Swiss town of Zermatt, where Ashton and Jon used to spend many a holiday on skis – after skis and gazing at the Matterhorn – the book was painstakingly transcribed from Tony’s hand written manuscript. Written in his inimitable style, it promises to have your sides splitting with laughter over Ashton’s amazing sense of humour.

Possibly most well known for his role in Paice Ashton Lord, Tony was also the main man behind Ashton Gardner & Dyke, whose biggest hit Resurrection Shuffle put them on the charts in 1971.

Tony Ashton passed away in 2001.

Subtitled A Musicians’ Guide To Going Downhill Fast (a line from one of Ashton’s last recorded songs), the book’s foreword was written by Jon who still counts Tony Ashton as one of his very best friends.

Read more about the book – and order it here to support JonLord.org.

On November 13, From Darkness To Light will be performed in Nürnberg by the Lehrersangverein comprising upwards of 100 singers and the Nürnberg Symphoniker conducted by Bernd Dietrich. Another performance already took place on October 27.

The piece was previously performed in the UK and Norway. In July 2007 we reported from Trondheim:

“And then comes the concert’s main attraction, From Darkness to Light, a 25-minute piece for piano, strings and choir. It moves gently from silence to roar. One minute a foaming sea in slow motion, the next a hot summer afternoon in the country with the wind making waves in the crops. From Darkness to Light starts as a glimmer, a small spot of light, before it slowly grows, sprinkling more dots till it expands and flows onwards for close to half an hour.”

Jon will not perform at either of the concerts.

November 13 - Nürnberg, Germany, Meistersingerhalle – 19.00
Lehrersangverein and Nürnberg Symphoniker conducted by Bernd Dietrich.
Tickets: ticketonline.de or Karstadt and der Lorenzkirche.

Read the flyer for the concert (pdf)

October 27 – Nürnberg, Germany, St. Martha Kirche, Königstr. 79
Das Bach Collegium and Der Figuralchoir conducted by Bernd Dietrich.

Read the full Trondheim 2007 report.

SEPTEMBER
30 – Kaiserslautern, Kammgarn-Blues-Festival – feat. BRIAN AUGER

NOVEMBER
15 – Regenstauf, Jahnhalle – feat. BRIAN AUGER
16 – Erfurt, Gewerkschaftshaus – feat. BRIAN AUGER
17 – Berlin, Huxleys - cancelled
18 – Hamburg, Fabrik – cancelled
18 – Salzgitter, Kulturscheune – feat. BRIAN AUGER
19 – Hannover, Bluesgarage – cancelled
20 – Bochum, Zeche – feat. BRIAN AUGER
22 – Aschaffenburg, Colos-Saal – cancelled
23 – Stuttgart, LKA Longhorn – feat. BRIAN AUGER

Jon Lord Blues Project, the Live CD (with Jon Lord) is still available.

24 – Bonn, Brückenforum – cancelled
25 – Uden, De Pul – cancelled
26 – Den Haag, Paard – cancelled

Line-up:
BRIAN AUGER – Hammond organ
MILLER ANDERSON – guitar & vocals
MAGGIE BELL – vocals
COLIN HODGKINSON – bass & vocals
ZOOT MONEY – Keyboards & vocals
PETE YORK – drums

Find out more about the Blues Project.