The Harp That Once Through

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 302, 6 April 1945, Page 8

The Harp That Once Through

Aimee '$ Halls

Ti Auckland-born harpist Winifred Carter will be heard on the air again next week. On Wednesday, April 11, she will begin a series of recitals for solo harp with short explanatory talks on the history and technique of the instrument. These will be heard from Station 1YA, and the first will begin at 8.0 p.m. Miss Carter returned to New Zealand for a short visit in 1939, after having been ‘with the Detroit Symphony for 16 years. Then the war began and the short visit has lasted six years. In 1940 she played the harp in the Centennial Festival -Orchestra and later she toured the NBS stations with Henri Penn in a series of recitals for piano and harp. Since then she has lived a quiet life in Auckland, occasionally playing for schools, but mainly looking after her mother. "But I intend to go back to the States as soon as the war will let me," she said when we met her the other day. "Momma is better now and I can go any time." We wanted to know if her mother had always been "Momma," or if it was States-influenced. "Oh, I hadn’t thought about it, but I guess I picked -it up in the States," she said. But that was the only time she said "I guess." Had she a job, then, to go back to? "Yes, I have. I'll go back to the Detroit. Symphony. I’ve kept up my membership of ‘the Union-and it’s been hard enough to send’ the fees always at the right times-but if you don’t belong to the Union you ¢an count yourself out."

Some time ago she had a letter from Australia; it was from Eugene Ormandy and it began, "Why aren’t you here? I expected you to play for-.me." It. was a friendly and a welcoming letter; Ormandy is one conductor Miss Carter will see as soon as she arrives back in the States. "You’ve played under him?" "Yes, oh yes. Many times, when he was guest conductor to the Detroit Symphony." "And under other famous ones? Toscanini, Stokowski. . .?" "Not Toscanini. But Bruno Walter, Goossens, Barbirolli, Stokowski, Reiner, Schneevoight, others too." 4 From Auckland, when she was a girl in her teens Miss Carter went to study at the Sydney Conservatorium, She played under Verbruggen and eventually became Professor of the Harp at the Conservatorium. At that time Aimee Semple McPherson, the American evangelist, was touring the world and arrived. in Australia. She set eyes on the goldenhaired girl with the golden harp and very soon afterwards Winifred Carter was installed in Mrs. McPherson’s Temple in Los Angeles. She stayed for a year, and then Ossip Gabrilowitch, conductor of the Detroit Symphony, offered her the position of first harpist in his orchestra. She was there for 16 years-until she returned to New Zealand. Now, she says, she is longing to get back to America again. (A photograph of Miss Carter appears on page 16)