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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rsTk2AZI9k

BRITISH AIRWAYS ENGINEER RE-IMAGINES FAMOUS MUSICAL THEME FROM ‘LAKMÉ’ TO MARK AIRLINE’S CENTENARY
April 17, 2019

Flower Duet theme from Delibes’ opera Lakmé reimagined to reflect British Airways’ history, in the airline’s centenary year

Music composed by British Airways’ quality engineer Lyndon Ooi whose day job involves checking that British Airways’ aircraft are fit to fly from a technical perspective

The music features a number of distinctive characteristics which reflect key moments in the airline’s history

Music was performed by the British Airways Orchestra made up of 30 British Airways colleagues and some external musicians.

Wednesday April 17, 2019 – To mark its centenary British Airways has released a new composition based on the famous piece of music, Flower Duet, which featured in Delibes’ opera Lakmé.

The original version of the music will also be recognisable as it has featured in a number of adverts from across the airline’s history, and is also played in the cabin during boarding.

The new version has been composed by Lyndon Ooi – a quality engineer at British Airways – whose day job involves checking that British Airways’ aircraft are fit to fly from a technical perspective.

The reworked composition is made up of 10 variations representing 10 significant milestones in British Airways’ history. It rises, falls, speeds up and slows down to moments including the formation of Imperial Airways, the introduction of the new jet age, Concorde’s farewell and the opening of Heathrow Terminal 5.

A full video of the music being performed by the British Airways Orchestra, made up of 30 British Airways colleagues including Lyndon, can be seen [above].


Other characteristics of the piece include:

* Years are used as bar numbers starting from 1919, the year Air Transport and Travel, the forerunner to British Airways, was formed

* The theme has been deliberately transposed from B major to G major so that the first two notes of the flower duet theme are “B” and “A” representing British Airways

* In variation IV, the BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) version is “B”, rest, “A”, “C”. The Cello plays “B”, “E”, “A” (representing British European Airways) against this. Both BOAC and BEA merged to form the current ‘British Airways’ customers know today

* The time signature of 7/4 in the bar 1971 represents the inaugural flight of British Airways’ first 747.

* The Concorde theme in bar 1976 - the year of is the aircraft’s first commercial flight - involves climbing up two octaves and back down signifying its ability to reach the speed of Mach 2 (supersonic speed)

* The end of the piece involves the entire current British Airways fleet of aircraft being represented by numbers on the diatonic scale. For example, 787 (the Dreamliner) and 320 (a popular short-haul aircraft) are on trills. As a look to the future, 350 comes in the final bar representing the A350 British Airways will receive later this year

Lyndon Ooi, the composer behind the music who works as an engineer, said: “Music has been a passion all of my life – much like the excitement of flying and the experience of travel it communicates with people and speaks straight to their hearts. It was a real challenge to fit the entire 100-year history of British Airways into the piece but I’m really happy with the final result. And what a pleasure it was to perform it with my colleagues in the British Airways Orchestra.”

A film of Lyndon explaining his thinking behind the music can be seen below:

In its centenary year, British Airways is hosting a range of activities and events. The airline is hosting BA 2119 - a programme, which will lead the debate on the future of flying and explore the future of sustainable aviation fuels, the aviation careers of the future and the customer experience of the future.

The airline will be working with expert partners to identify BA’s 100 Modern Britons; the people up and down the country who are currently shaping modern Britain, and of course, the year would not be complete without creating some special moments for customers – on and off board.

The centenary activity is taking place alongside the airline’s current five-year £6.5bn investment for customers. This includes the installation of the best quality WiFi and power in every seat, fitting 128 long-haul aircraft with new interiors and taking delivery of 72 new aircraft. Last month the airline also revealed its highly-anticipated new business class seat - 'Club Suite' - and confirmed it will arrive on the first of its A350 aircraft in July.

A link to the British Airways Orchestra Facebook page can be seen here: https://www.facebook.com/britishairwaysorchestra/

ENDS

Thanks for posting this. I enjoyed it very much (really!).

Now is there any chance anyone is going to re-engineer the safety video?

Fantastic; even better if they had changed the music style through the ages

A horrible idea as far as im
concerned. I thoroughly dislike the concept of ‘adapting’ classical music and rewriting it. It includes both the version currently used and this. Leave the Flower duet alone, it is just a lot more beautiful as Delibes composed it. I have no doubt, however, that I’ll be a very small minority here.

PS: I like the idea of BA staff performing though! Just wish it was the actual air.
PPS: why no image of an A380 (unless I've missed it?). It is my favourite BA bird! It would also be nice to feature some of the subsidiaries within the BA family, the unique offerings such as CWLCY, and BMI among the historical ones.

This is pretty cool. I like it when employees (at any firm) are encouraged to show their talents beyond their job scope.

Brought tears to my eyes!