Ronald Hanmer (1917 - 1995) was born in Reigate, Surrey. When only 14 he was involved in the first of the famous Ralph Reader Gang Shows at London’s Scala Theatre. Ron wrote down all the music (Ralph Reader couldn’t read music) and also played the piano in the show. He studied at the Blackheath Conservatoire of Music under Harry Farjeon and joined Granada Theatres as a cinema organist.
He wrote many of the specialty arrangements for Tommy Handley’s famous ITMA show, and his output of background music for ‘mood music’ libraries numbered almost a thousand. He worked for thirty years with Edmundo Ros and particularly loved Latin American music. He also arranged for Sydney Thompson, turning out some 2,000 pieces for him and sometimes (anonymously) conducting his orchestra.
For twenty years he orchestrated all the London Palladium pantomimes and his love of the theatre made him realise that amateur operatic societies often found it difficult to hire suitable musical shows. He orchestrated more than 25 shows in a format suitable for amateur performance including Die Fledermaus, The Gipsy Baron, The Merry Widow and Lilac Time.
In 1975 he decide to emigrate to Australia and settled in Brisbane, ostensibly to retire. Very soon he was in demand and became part of the local musical scene, founding and conducting the St Lucia Orchestra which specialised in playing light music. His greatest claim to fame in Australia was the adoption of his Pastorale as the theme music to the Australian radio’s daily serial Blue Hills which ran for 27 years. He later developed this theme for ABC into a 13 minute Blue Hills Rhapsody for symphony orchestra.
In 1992 Ronald Hanmer received two important honours. He was awarded a medal for surviving for fifty years with diabetes and, more importantly, The Queen made him a Member of the Order of Australia in recognition of his services to music.
He died in Australia in 1995 having, in his own words, ‘spent a long life doing what I like best’. A reviewer once commented, ‘Mr Hanmer throws tunes around like a man with ten arms’. How lucky for Emerson Edition that we met him, just once and very briefly, and he threw some of them our way.
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