Celebration Cakewalk

The Cake-Walk, or Cakewalk, dance was developed from a "Prize Walk" done in the days of slavery, generally at get-togethers on plantations in the Southern United States. Alternative names for the original form of the dance were "chalkline-walk", and the "walk-around". At the conclusion of a performance of the original form of the dance in an exhibit at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, an enormous cake was awarded to the winning couple. Thereafter it was performed in minstrel shows, exclusively by men until the 1890s. The inclusion of women in the cast "made possible all sorts of improvisations in the Walk, and the original was soon changed into a grotesque dance" which became very popular across the country.

Martin Setchell (b. 1946) was born in the North of England town of Blackpool, Martin holds Honours degrees in both French and Music from the University of Exeter, and was awarded both the Limpus and Shinn prizes when he received his Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists in London. Subsequently he undertook advanced studies in Classical organ technique with Pierre Cochereau (then titular organist of Notre Dame in Paris), Marie-Claire Alain, Piet Kee, and Peter Hurford. In 1974 he emigrated to New Zealand on his appointment to the University of Canterbury School of Music where he is Associate Professor of Music, University Organist and tutor in organ. He combines his university teaching and research career with a busy schedule of recitals and concerts as soloist, accompanist and continuo player on organ and harpsichord. Since 1997, when he was appointed curator of the newly installed Rieger pipe organ in the Christchurch Town Hall, he has devoted himself to promoting the organ as a concert instrument internationally. His solo concert tours outside New Zealand regularly take him to Australia, America, Europe and the Far East.