A COLLEGE CHOIR

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 325, 14 September 1945, Page 15

A COLLEGE CHOIR

HE Choir of St. Cuthbert’s. Presbyterian College for Girls will give the first broadcast of its career from 1YA on Saturday, September 22. The programme will be in two parts, the first from 8 ‘o'clock and the second from 8.40 p.m. The choir consists of twenty selected voices from the whole school; it is ak ready well known in Auckland and is much in demand to singing at. church services. The choir took part in the recent Musical Festival and it has also taken part in various school and other concerts in recent years. Miss C. M. Herbert, who directs all the music at St. Cuthbert’s, trains and conducts the choir and is its usual accompanist. When The Listener asked her about the forthcoming broadcast she explained that most of the work for it had been done before the holidays and that there would be only a short time to "polish up" after the girls came back to school. "But they knew the whole programme very well before the holidays and had worked very hard at it," she said, "I should add that_they did all rehearsing in out-of-school hours." The main item in the first half of the programme will be Bach’s "My Heart Ever Faithful," in which one girl, Jessie Signal, will sing solo parts. Miss Herbert described this girl’s voice as the most ‘remarkable ‘she has heard in her teaching career; she is fourteen years of age and has a full and matute voice"the voice of a prima donna," Miss Herbert said. A Somersetshire folk song on the Aeolian mode, with a descant emphasising this mode, will also be in the first half of the programme. A three-part arrangement of some of the verses from Shelley’s "The Cloud" and a song with solo parts will be followed in the second half of the programme by two lighter pieces, "The Cuckoo Clock" with imitative sounds, and Miss Herbert’s own arrangement of Scottish airs with some members of the choir singing to give the effect of bagpipes.