Gladys Ripley's Tour

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 505, 25 February 1949, Page 15

Gladys Ripley's Tour

HEN Gladys Ripley arrives in Auckland this week she will be paying her first visit to New Zealand for nine years. During the Centennial Music Festival in 1940 she sang in concerts and took part in the presentation of Faust with Isobel Baillie, Heddle Nash, Raymond Beatty, and Oscar Natzka. This year her tour will consist of broadcast studio recitals and public concerts in which she will be assisted by Wainwright Morgan, the Christchurch pianist. During the latter part of her tour she will appear in some places with the English tenor Walter Midgley, who .will arrive about the middle of March.

After her arrival, on Thursday, February 24, Miss Ripley will travel straight to Wellington in time to broadcast her first recital, at 8.22 p.m. this Sunday, February 27, from the Studios of 2YA.*° A second recital from 2YA will be heard on Tuesday, March 1. Wainwright Morgan, who acted as accompanist for Isobel Baillie during her tour last year, will be accompanist on this occasion also. Gladys Ripley’s first public concert will be held at the Wellington Town Hall Concert Chamber, on Thursday, March 3, The first part of the concert will be broadcast by station 2YA, starting at 8.0 p.m. The programme will include an interlude of piano solos by Wainwright Morgan. On Saturday, March 5, Gladys Ripley will ‘give a concert at the School of Music, Nelson, and the first half of this concert also will be broadcast, starting at 8.0 p.m., from 2XN. The broadcast programme should include a group of operatic arias, songs by Bantock, and early Italian songs. Gladys Ripley is expected to give, in addition to these concerts, either studio recitals) or public performances at Christchurch, Timaru, Dunedin, Invercargill, Gisborne, Hastings, Palmerston North, Hamilton, and Auckland. Final details of her itinerary will be announced later.