CHORAL MUSIC

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 135, 9 June 1937, Page 9

CHORAL MUSIC

GROWING INTEREST

COMPETITIONS' INFLUENCE

Steps are being taken by the Wellington Competitions Society to popularise the choral section of the competitions and make it one of the outstanding features of the coming festival. In recent years the number of competing choirs has increased, and last year eight choirs, representing 240 voices and including the Maori choir from Hastings, participated in the Wellington Competitions.

Messrs. Blundell Brothers, proprietors of the "Evening Post," have made a donation of £25, and it has been unanimously decided by the committee to devote this to the choral section. The contest will be known as

"The 'Evening Post' Church Choir Contest," and will carry, as before, the challenge shield presented by Messrs. Chas. Begg and Co., Ltd., Wellington.

Choral music has a singular attraction, and choirs are always popular with the^public. A scheme has been proposed whereby provincial choir championships should be held in the centres, the winners to compete at Wellington in a champion of champions contest. Such a contest would not only do much to foster choral music generally, but could be part of a scheme that has been propounded for the establishment of choirs for the Centennial. This scheme envisages a local festival choir in each of the four centres, and to carry it into effect a great deal of. preliminary work would have to be done in the way of tests. The plans at present in the mind of ths committee of the Wellington Competitions Society should bear usefully on a Centennial scheme, whatever its final form may be.

In addition to church choirs, Wellington possesses nine choirs or choral societies, so it can be said that' Wellington is well to the fore in choral music. Further interest will be taken here when the Christchurch Harmonic Society visits Wellington towards the end of July. This visit is being arranged by those people in Christchurch who wish to see the performance of choral music given a stimulus throughout the Dominion.

THIS YEAR'S FESTIVAL.

The syllabus for'the 1937 Wellington festival has now been issued, and copies are available at Wellington music dealers. The adjudicators for this year's festival are as follows: —Instrumental, Mr. Max Scherek, Dunedin; vocal, Mr. John P. Leech, Dunedin; elocution, Professor Maxwell Walker, Auckland; associate elocution, Miss Mary Doolan, Wellington; fancy dancing, Miss Gwen Gibbs f Palmerston North; national dancing, Miss Gladys Smyth, Hastings; original song composition, Mr. T. Vernon Griffiths, Dunedin; magic, Mr. C. A. Forrest, Wellington.

jiany extra prizes and donations have been received from Wellington firms, bringing cash prizes and trophies to a value exceeding £500. The 1937 festival will be held in the Town Hall, Concert Chamber, and Blue Triangle Hall, from August 21 to September 4, and this year with the many attractive features which have been added it is expected that entries will reach a record figure. Entries for all classes will close on Friday, July 2, at 9 p.m. There are 229 classes in the syllabus, for instrumental, vocal, elocutionary, dancing, and magic items. The Competitions Society has again arranged to takevas'-many-.of the senior classes as possible in the Concert Chamber during the evenings of the festival. This proved a big success last year, resulting in a large increase of entries, particularly in the vocal section. ' ■ _