'The Typewriter' Comes to Canberra

Leroy Anderson’s famous piece “The Typewriter”, composed in 1950 and the theme for one of the late Jerry Lewis’s most watched comic efforts, will be performed in Canberra for the first time next Sunday.

The typewriter to be used will be my poppy red Adler Gabriele 25, which I refurbished earlier this year.

The typewriter will be “played” by one of Canberra’s top percussionists, Veronica Walshaw, above, principle percussionist with the Canberra Symphony Orchestra. Veronica will be playing with the National Capital Orchestra as a guest soloist specifically for this piece. 

The NCO first tried out a “playable” typewriter which belongs to the 97-year-old father of one of the orchestra members, but found the machine wasn’t fully functional. So Steven Strach, timpanist and percussionist with the NCO, came to me for help. Steven, a forensic document examiner by day, was the man who organised my typewriter workshop at the Australasian Forensic Document Examiners’ Conference in Sydney a few years back.

My first thought for “The Typewriter” performance was the poppy red Adler, but I offered two other machines, including an Oliver 5. And after Veronica also tried an Olivetti Lettera 32, she settled on the Adler.

There will be two performances on Sunday at the Canberra Grammar School, John Lingard Hall, Red Hill. Each will feature a theatrical component to “The Typewriter” piece.