Welcome
FULL LENGTH FEATURE FILMS
(Free...no registration. Just click and go)
*enlarge screen by clicking on the panel at the bottom right hand corner of the video
from week to week we will build up a program of eg Japanese films / documentaries as well Hollywood musicals
(Click on the three bars 
in above for selection of films)
Sadly AJSW Honorary Patron and friend Jeff Manookian passed away on July 10, 2021 at 3:20 am. I never met him but our long distance friendship revealed not just a talented composer and musician, but a genuine, warm and sensitive human being. He was so supportive and I was able to help a little with some of his recordings. I hoped to do more but time is sometimes never kind. We will have a tribute to Jeff here on our web site in due coures. Below is a fitting tribute to him but there are and will be many more.
R.I.P. Jeff
Godfrey Kinghttps://www.thememories.com/obituary/jeffrey-manookin/27398#/
For Jeff Manookian's scores on IMSLP:-
https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Manookian%2C
Jeff's 'MARIMBA CONCERTO'
Our own AJSW Chamber Music Ensemble's 2016 live version of Jeff Manookian's arrangement of George Gershwin's 'Lullaby'
George Gershwin's 'Lullaby' transcribed by Jeff Manookian recorded in a live performance by the AJSW Chamber Music Ensemble
Parts:- https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Manookian,_Jeff
Marimba Concerto Score:- https://imslp.org/wiki/Marimba_Concerto_(Manookian%2C_Jeff)
From time to time I re-mix videos / tracks for those performers to enhance the quality and presentation. I re-mixed one recently for one of our Honorary Patrons: Jeff Manookian (see other insert on Hon Patrons below). It is all explained in the video...enjoy his 6 movement:-
'Aires de Yucatan'
Parts:- imslp.org/wiki/Aires_de_Yucat%C3%A1n_(Manookian%2C_Jeff)
Our Other Illustrious Honorary Patrons
Kazue Yanagida
Our Japanese Representative
George Logan (Dr Evadne Hinge)
Musician (Pianist), Actor, Author
Michael Soumei Coxall
Shakuhachi
• • •
For further information on our Honorary Patrons, please click here
'CLASS JAZZ'
with
CLASS JAZZ TO-DAY (2017)
'Where Are They Now'
CLICK HERE FOR APPRECIATION by Godfrey King (Text)
A POT POURRI OF VIDEO PLAYLISTS
Featured artists and music of all kinds.
Compiled by Godfrey King for the AJSW
AJSW Christmas Playlists 2014 - 2020
Our Christmas Playlists are a unique and sometimes even madcap view of the seaon of goodwill. We have tried, over the years, to cover any withdrawn videos of which there have been very few considering the hundreds we have presented. It has been an exhaustive process to select, present them and using the best quality (audio and visual) possible.
So here they are....click on a thumbnail picture for the year of your choice. Click on the video...left hand click twice to enlarge it to full screen. If you want to select specific videos go to the three bars () at the top right corner of the video....click your choice...then click on the cross (+) to draw the programme choice back.
Have a listen to a sample from the CD...
The AJSW's Christmas mini-CD with The Pascal's:
Steve & Aska Holtz
Great songs -- Great Music as Steve and Aska sing for us
to share and express all our 'CHRISTMAS HOPES AND WISHES'
(Click image to show contents)
£8 plus £2 postage (£10)
Cheques payable to 'Anglo-Japanese Society of Wessex'
Order from: godfreyking316@btinternet.com
Address: AJSW, 18 Ronald Buckingham Court, Kenning Street, Rotherhithe, London SE16 4LL
AUDIO SAMPLER:
A SELECTION OF PAST EVENTS FROM OUR ARCHIVES
(Click on image for PDF)
Click here for detailed event information.
Please find below piano solo from Kumi Matsuo, "Franz Liszt: Au lac de Wallenstadt, from Annees de Pelerinage BK1."
(Click on image for PDF)
Click here for detailed event information.
Have a look at our promotional video...
(Click on image for PDF)
Click here for detailed event information.
Our Wessex Title Explained
Our title and what inspired it is often assumed to cover the region described in Thomas Hardy's novels based on the Wessex Region.....but he was a novelist not an historian and his geographical outline of Wessex described to suit his novels within a defined area and names he used of towns and villages pseudonyms for real places within that area. The real history of Wessex and the area it covered is more complex and over a variable area of the country as its fortunes ebbed and flowed. Our oft asked question "What are you doing in London" sometimes wearisome to answer as little can be explained in a few sentences to a half interested listener and especially the Japanese!
Wessex simply means 'West Saxons' and Sussex (South Saxons), Essex (East Saxons) and Middlesex (Middle Saxons). Wessex, unlike those counties, was never enshrined in the name of a county. The Saxons came from an area of Germany and our present Monarchy are only called the family name of Windsor due to a name change from Saxe-Coburg because of its Germanic connections and the concerns within the UK about the Royal Family's loyalties during World War I due to its relatives within the German Royal Family.
Surpressed post 1066 after the Norman invasion took over the Monarchy of the United Kingdom (s), the region of Wessex shone dimly through the ages almost as a folk memory until Hardy revived interest in it albeit with a novelist's interest to 'tell a good story' but not necessarily a factual one.
But it was the only Monarch called 'Great'...'Alfred The Great'....who established the region of Wessex as a crucial element to everything we now think of as 'English'....the 'Anglo-Saxons' (the English Saxons). Defeated by the Danish forces he hid on what we know as The Isle of Athelney close to Glastonbury in Somerset and from there rose again to defeat the Danes including taking London. Alfred believed the best way to establish national stability was to educate its people. And so began the process that grew into the British Empire that covered nearly the whole world which is why, whatever history's twists and turns may cause, there is some corner of a foreign field 'Forever England'.
Let us say then our title is symbolic of what one man can dream of and bring to a reality 'from a swamp in Somerset'.
Here is a visual explanation explaining some of the history by Ryan M. Reeves:
Alfred and Anglo Saxon England
Further info may be gained from myriad sources and Wikpedia a good place to embark on an expansive and interesting historical quest (see here).
Godfrey King 15.7.14
