The new work ‘Film Noir: City at Night’ by Los Angeles based composer Leonard Stack was given its World Premiere performance by the 150 strong CIA World Accordion Orchestra II under the direction of Joan C. Sommers at the recent 61st Coupe Mondiale festival held in Glasgow, Scotland.

The programmatic idea is of a dark deserted street at night where menace lurks anywhere. The second theme announces a “floozy” sauntering in. The middle section increases in tension and violence as all sorts of mayhem occurs. Finally the main theme is recapitulated and it ends with a quiet ominousness. This music is reminiscent of the film noir movies of the late 1940’s and early 1950’s.

Leonard (Lenny) Stack, a native of Los Angeles, is a highly successful composer, arranger, musical director and conductor. He won an Emmy for arranging and an Emmy nomination as musical director for his work in television specials. He is a member of ASCAP and the Television Academy and holds a Bachelor of Music in Composition. Artists such as Diana Ross and Dionne Warwick have recorded his songs and his musical scores have been used in many feature films and movies made for TV. The lengthy list of Leonard Stack’s publications includes classical compositions for various ensembles as well as his Big Band Jazz originals; all have been performed frequently.

His first work for Accordion Orchestra, ‘Lest we Forget’ was given its World Premiere performance by the first World Accordion Orchestra held in conjunction with the 60th Anniversary Coupe Mondiale in Alexandria, VA (Washington DC) in August of 2007. Commissioned by the University of Missouri – Kansas City (UMKC) Community Accordion Orchestra, ‘Lest we Forget’ was also premiered under the direction of Joan C. Sommers.

The CIA World Accordion Orchestra II also performed other works conducted by well known United Kingdom conductors Ronnie Brown, Brian Laurie, Graham Laurie, and Elaine Beecham – pictured above.