ADMIRABLE CAVENDISH

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 343, 18 January 1946, Page 24

ADMIRABLE CAVENDISH

| Pianist and Arranger, Singer and Sportswoman AY CAVENDISH, whose session "Kay on the Keys" is a familiar BBC feature to many New Zealand listeners, is one of those fortunate people who can do almost anything well. Best known as a swing pianist, she was a classical pianist of high standing, a good arranger, actress and radio announcer and a successful singer-though she says she can’t sing properly and doesn’t pretend to | be able to.

Away from the microphone she is just as gifted and her natural bent for succeeding has made her a champion lawn tennis player and fencer (she has fenced for England), a six-handicap golfer, an outstanding»lacrosse player and a fine horsewoman. It is almost unnecessary to add that she has good looks as well. When she was six, Kay (whose real name is Kathleen Murray) started to play the piano, and loved it from the start. At 16 she went to the Royal Academy of Music, studied there under Percy Waller and won the Edward Nicholls prize. She became a pianist, playing in Sunday afternoon recitals at Glyndebourne, was a soloist in broadcast concerts from the Houldsworth Hall in Manchester; and twice played under Sir Henry Wood at Queen’s Hall. Father ‘Was Troublesome But in adopting music as a career she ran counter to her father’s wishes and before long found herself. very short of money. Serious music is not a paying proposition for a beginner, however talented, and she had to widen her activities. A friendly agent booked her for small concerts and dinners and for work as a film extra. She even modelled for commercial photographers and made a success of that too, The turning point in her career came suddenly. At Glyndebourne she had met many distinguished musicians and out of these meetings came an invitation to visit Vienna and play with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under Bruno Walter. When she was about to accept, her agent offered her a job with a new vocal trio, playing jazz and singing, She had never played a note of jazz or swing but the offer was tempting and she | turned down the Vienna trip (and with it her career as a classical pianist), Shortly afterwards the trio was "discovered" by Eric Maschwitz and began a long and popular radio career. Known at first as the Radio Three, they toured the halls, sang with dance*bands and did cabaret work, as well as broadcasting. The lcading part taken by Kay became obvious when the trio was reformed as the Cavendish Three. Under that name

it had appeared in innumerable radia programmes as part of the BBC Variety Repertory, with Kay Cavendish doing all the arrangements, selecting the musi¢ and playing the piano. The other mem bers are Pat Rignold, sister of the band leader, and Helen Raymond. Solo Effort *Kay’s most ambitious programme so far is "Kay on the Keys,’ a quarterhour session which she does on her own and which has been going for a year. Like her career as a swing pianist, this session began almost accidentally. She was rehearsing by herself in a studio one day when a recording engineer asked her if she would fill in an odd end of recording tape by playing or singing anything she liked. So she sat down at the piano and played jazz and classical music, talking and singing as she pleased. Pat Hillyard, Assistant-Director of Variety, heard the recording by chance, realised how good it was, and "Kay on the Keys" was put into the programmes. Since 1939 she has added annnouncing to her long list of accomplishments. She was appointed relief announcer for the Radio Exhibition-at Radiolympia by the Director of Television (Gerald Cock) and it was she who gave the last television announcement on Friday, September 1, 1939. The following June she became relief announcer for the Variety Department of the BBC and was so inevitably successful that she joined the permanent announcing staff for a year. As may be imagined, she has little spare time. What she has she spends playing Bach (still her favourite composer), or exercising her dog, a bull terrier called Sian, for whom she has a deep affection. But her chief enthusiasm is her work.