Presenting Alec Templeton

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 242, 11 February 1944, Page 21

Presenting Alec Templeton

LEC TEMPLETON, the blind A pianist whose clever mimicry and parodies have made him one of America’s most popular entertainers, will be featured in a new series of programmes to be heard from Station 2YC each Friday evening at 8.30, starting on Friday, February 18. It is "Carnival of Music," and Templeton is associated in it with Morton Gould and his orchestra. Templeton is a Welshman-he was born in Cardiff in 1909-and the Welsh- ’ man’s reputed gift for music is concentrated in him. He composed his first piece of music when he was four-"Slow Movement"; so called, he says, probably because he heard some adult refer to the slow movement of a symphony or a sonata and liked the sound of the words. His first teacher was Margaret Humphrey, of Cardiff, who put him through the Royal Academy of Music examinations, and then worked with him when he was up for entrance into the Royal College of Music. Templeton now holds the degrees of Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music and Associate of the Royal College of Music. The "Emperor" By Ear Templeton’s first appearance as an amateur musician was at the age of five, when he played at a children’s concert at Cardiff. The outstanding event of his childhood was the learning of the Beethoven "Emperor" Concerto, which he later played with the Cardiff orchestra under the difection of Herbert Ware. On a Thursday night Mr. Ware presented Templeton with a recording. of the concerto. Templeton played it several times on Friday, and that night spent hours going over it with his teacher. On Saturday he rehearsed the concerto with the orchestra, and gave a superb performance of the work at the concert on the Monday. Besides being a _ concert pianist, Templeton is a serious composer. His most recent works are "Rhapsodie Harmonique" and "Concerto Lyrico." But while Alec Templeton became famous as a concert pianist in serious music, he is best known in New Zealand for his fanciful excursions into musical whimsy. His impressions and improvisations are famous-he says he "would rather ad lib than eat." His gift for ad

libbing (a term for improvising entertainment at the microphone) made a particular hit with men of the Armed Forces in the United States. Our photograph shows Templeton at the piano. We don’t know who his companion is, but some of our readers may.