"Ayayaaaaaayyyyyhh!!! The Spaghetti Western Orchestra is both hilarious and deadly serious"
- Stadtanzeiger, Germany

At The Atheneum Theatre from 9 November.

The Spaghetti Western Orchestra brings to life the soundtracks of Italian film composer Ennio Morricone.  Think of A Fistful of Dollars; Once Upon a Time in the West;  The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.


Five extraordinary musicians - Patrick Cronin, Graeme Leak, Boris Conley, David Hewitt, Phillip McLeod - interpret the work of Morricone's early work from the ‘60s and ‘70s - a time when avant-garde was simmering and experimentation was the order of the day.  With a bewildering use of a variety of instruments, objects and sound effects, the Spaghetti Western Orchestra creates a mesmerising and often hilarious sound scape of epic western themes, heroic gunfighter ballads and bungled shoot-outs.

In their manic attempts to reproduce the sounds of the Spaghetti Westerns, the performers' actions traverse imaginal boundaries from the mundane to the fantastic via the ridiculous - a truly unforgettable sonic experience.

The five members of the Spaghetti Western Orchestra are multi-arts' performers, with strong backgrounds in theatre, comedy, contemporary dance, film and a plethora of musical styles - orchestra, jazz, folk, pop, contemporary art music, roots, Latin and world music.

They bring to the ensemble a shared interest in music, sound effects and unusual performance making.  Dramatic tension and comedy is generated from the ambitious nature of the group attempting to realise Morricone's complex film scores.  Exotic percussion is juxtaposed against incoherent grunting, in-the-saddle rhythms and expansive melodies.