AUSTRALIAN SINGERS

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20504, 21 May 1938, Page 17 (Supplement)

AUSTRALIAN SINGERS

THE BEST IN THE WORLD CATHOLIC COMPOSER’S PRAISE Australian singers in a European environment and with the right leadership would be the leading singers of the world, in the opinion of Dom S. Moreno, the greatest living composer of Catholic Church music, now on his way to New Norcia after six months work in New South Wales, says a Sydney paper. “Australians,” he said, “have a natural musical temperament and a-s singers they are far better than those of any nation in Europe. “The women, especially, have beautiful voices. “What they really need,” he said, “is dynamic leadership by conductors who have gained the wide European background. “I do not know why young Australians are so gifted. It may lie because of the sunshine, the climate, the good health of the people; most likely it is because you are happy in your freedom, because you sing for the sheer love of singing.

Better Than In Europe I In the Catholic schools, on which • he could speak with certainty, the ; musical education and the results j were belter Ilian could be had anywhere in Europe. j “You would never hear in Europe. | for instance," he said, “any school 1 choir as good as that of St- Anthony's ; School, at ClovelJy, which won the 'Slate open championship for schools | at the Eisteddfod. i Dom Moreno left, the Benedictine 9 Monastery, in New Norcia, W.A., to spend six months in New South Wales arranging llie music for the Regional Eucharistic Congress at Newcastle ami reviewing church music in Sydney. He left Sydney to return to the solitude of the monastery, where he works seven hours a day composing music.