Alumna Rebecca Smith leads Palm Court Music revival

In November 2023, inspired by her role as the violinist with the Scarborough Spa Orchestra (the last remaining professional seaside orchestra in the UK) Rebecca Smith, (Class of 2005) launched her palm court orchestra: The Rebecca Smith Orchestra and presented the whole range of Palm Court Music at an inspiring opening night.

Dating back as far as the 1890s, the Palm Court genre of music was borne out of an appetite for music to accompany high teas and dinner dances—in hotels, spa town pavilions, and aboard ocean liners. Usually the room would be adorned with palms and aspidistras, and the style came to be known as 'Palm Court’. It wasn’t long before it roared its way through the hotels of the West End of London in the 1920s and 30s, taking up the genre of the dance band, and catapulting to fame band leaders and violinists such as Albert Sandler, Tom Jenkins and Max Jaffa, with whom Rebecca has a family connection. In 1924, the long-running BBC radio series ‘Grand Hotel’, began to broadcast live performances from the Great Hall of the Grand Hotel, Eastbourne, going out every Sunday night until 1939. Thus began a long line of light classical violinists leading the BBC’s Palm Court Orchestra.

After leaving WHS, Rebecca studied music at Worcester College, Oxford, before completing an MMus in Violin Performance at the Royal Northern College of Music.  Since then she has been freelancing as a violinist and viola player, performing on stages worldwide and on BBC Radio.  She is delighted to be championing this genre of music making, and driving its revival. She considers her direct lineage to Max Jaffa both humbling and inspiring. Max had already become a household name through BBC broadcasts before eventually becoming the Violinist and Musical Director of the Scarborough Spa Orchestra. His status as the world’s pre-eminent light classical violinist still stands today. With exciting plans afoot, you can keep an eye on for news and future events from Rebecca Smith and her orchestra here