STATE ORCHESTRA.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 January 1920, Page 7

STATE ORCHESTRA.

ARRIVAL IN AUCKLAND. MR. VERBRUGGHEN'S WORK. The New South Wales State Orchestra, with Mr. Henri Verbrugghen, its Belgian conductor, arrived in Auckland •on Sunday from Sydney. These 80 performers, with their various instruments, attracted considerable notice as they disembarked from the Maheno, and were driven by motor cars to their destinations throughout the city. Before the musicians left the ship they were welcomed to New Zealand by Mr. H. Gladstone Hill, organiser of the tour, and Mr. J. F. Bennett, the secretary. Mr. Verbrugghen is naturally proud of the success which has so quickly crowned his efforts in Australia, and he expressed the belief that the sis weeks' tour in New Zealand will ba a stimulus: to the music-loving publlo throughout the Dominion.

It was in 1914 that New South Wales decided to have a State Conservator]urn •in Sydney, and in reply to world-wide advertising for a director they secured 173 applicants. Mr. Verbrugghen was appointed to the position simultaneously and independently by a London committee and one in Sydney. He, therefore, gave up his positon at Glasgow Athenaeum School of Music, where he was responsible for the opera classes, the orchestral classes, chamber music classes, and the violin school, as well as being conductor of the Glasgow Choral Union of 350 voices. When he arrived at the conserva; torium in Sydney, he found bare walls, and, accordingly, he had to begin hia duties by ordering structural alterations and getting suitable furnishings introduced. It was on Starch 6, lfllG, that the new eonservatorium was opened, and an orchestra formed on small lines. Four concerts were given during the first year. Receiving great public support, and being untrammelled by tradition, which he'considers spells death to originality, he was able to extend rapidly, until to-day he has an orchestra of 80 members, mainly comprising some of the professsrs at the eonservatorium, and some of the thousand enthusiastic students who are now under his charge there.

At the end of 1918 he announced to the Government that he could go no further unless the orchestra was placed on a permanent basis;. This suggestion was approved, and the Government gave him a guarantee of £12,000 against loss. The first year under the new arrangement does not terminate until February next, but already the year's work shnws « substantial profit.

During the season of ten months just completed in Sydney, no fewer than 73 concerts were given. .The farewell concert was in the Town Hall, and was attended by about 3000 people. The present tour has been arranswi and guaranteed privately, but Mr. Verbrugghen is keenly anxious that the national aspeet of the whole matter should be seriously considered, as bfe sees every prospect of a similar_orthestra in this country meeting with unqualified success.