NO ENCOURAGEMENT FOR LOCAL TALENT?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 162, 31 July 1942, Page 8

NO ENCOURAGEMENT FOR LOCAL TALENT?

~The Commercial Service Has An Answer

¢¢ OMETHING should be S done to encourage the musical ability of New Zealand boys and girls," suggested J. A. Lee in the House of Representatives the other night. At present this did not seem to be anybody’s business in particular, and he advocated a scheme of scholarships. The Commercial Broadcasting Service certainly is not content to say that this is not anybody’s business. Since the early days of Commercial broadcasting, be service points out, it has looked for,

and often found, local talent. Singers, instrumentalists, dance bands, military bands-they have all been encouraged to come before the microphone, and children’s choirs have been started all over the country. And many of the children who were first brought into the limelight by one or other of the ZB Quests for Talent, have now graduated into the regular artist class. During the past year the expenditure by the CBS on local artists alone was £7,520, and this was an increase on previous years. The discussion in the House coincided with a special programme that the ZB stations are putting over the air on Sun(Continued on next page)

---- LOCAL TALENT

(Continued from previous page) day nights at 8 o’clock from all stations. All the artists are local artists and the orchestra is the 1ZB Concert Orchestra under Reg. Morgan. The programme is produced. by. D. Wrathall and Arthur Collyns and there are a large number of performers. The names of some of them are already familiar to listeners, and perhaps the voices too: Stewart Harvey (baritone), and Jacqueline Page (soprano), whose picture appears on the opposite page, Thea Ryan (pianist) who plays with Eric Bell at the Novachord, June*Barson, who was the winner of the quest for the Deanne Durbin voice, Mary Negus (soprano),, Gordon Fagan (tenor), Betty Spiro (soprano), Jean MacFarlane (contralto), Te Mauri Mei‘hana (soprano), and Dan Flood (hum-orist)-these are some whom listeners have heard and will hear again in this session, A special object of these concerts is to encourage not only local performers, but also New Zealand composers, and each Sunday an item by a New Zealand composer may be heard. One that is likely to become popular is the song "Roll out the Bombers" by H. H. Moller, which is sung by Stewart Harvey with the orchestra accompanying.