Student Teachers Entertain

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 527, 29 July 1949, Page 24

Student Teachers Entertain

ENEFIT to the community as well as to the students them- / ) selves should result from | wise use of the golden. opportuni- | ties which exist at Ardmore | Teachers’ Training College for | developing interest in music and the arts. And these opportunities, largely created by the fact that the students live on the premises in a semi-rural environment, are far from being wasted. Evi- | dence of this is to be found in two | programmes which will be broadcast by | 1YA next week. At 7.52 p.m. on Tuesday, August 2, there will be a selection of traditional and modern chants and hakas by the Ardmore Maori Student | Group, and on the following evening a | studio recital by the Ardmore College | Choir, beginning at 7.30 p.m. | Keenly interested in preserving the | language and culture of their ancestors, . the Maori Students’ Group seem to have | accepted the dictum that if Maori cul- | ture is to live and thrive it must be | subject to the modifications of a chang- : / ing environment. This broadcast will consist of excerpts from a more ambiti- | ous. concert to be presented at the | College later in which they have tried | "to give an outline of Maori history set | to music, dance, and song." They have made every effort to preserve the his- | torical accuracy of some of the items, which have been handed down from the | legendary past, and in others they have attempted to show the influences on Maori music exerted by such events as the arrival of the first Pakeha missionaries,. the Maori Wars, the Great War, and the Second World War. The broadcast will be recorded for transmission by the shortwave station of the NZBS. Works selected from a period extending from the sixteenth century to the present day will be presented by the choir, conducted by Ramsay Howie,’ lecturer in music at the college. They include; "Benedictus" from "Mass for Four Voices" (Byrd), a madrigal "The Silver Swan" (Orlando Gibbons), the chorale "Oh Sacred Heart" from Bach’s The Passion According to Saint Matthew, a-unison song "Death- and the Maiden" (Schubert), and the chorus "Look, the Storm Cone" from the opera Peter Grimes by Britten. The choir is composed of both male and female singers, and some of its members are older students from Auckland University College School of Engineering, whose more mature Voices should be very helpful in producing a balanced performance. This co-opera-tion between the two academically Separate institutions at Ardmore, the Training College and the School of Engineering is very valuable and a highly satisfactory, feature of student activity, Mr. Howie told The Listener. But the students are developing a wider field of co-operative effort. A Community Choir has been formed embracing both groups of students ‘and their staffs, near by farmers, businessmen and women from Papakura-in fact anyone living within reach of the college who is interested, said Mr. Howie., "We meet once a week for practice; some of the members travelling ten | miles or more, It does not matter to

us whether or not we produce.a really high standard of singing-or perhaps I should say, that is not our first objec-tive-what does matter is that we should enjoy ourselves. I believe we do, thoroughly." Liaison has been established with other choral groups in more remote rural centres. "We found a number of very enthusiastic small groups at work on their own, and in the belief that we would all benefit from concerted effort, and, the smaller isolated groups particularly, from getting ‘audience appreciation’ arrangements have been made for a combined evening to be held at the college in the near future." Mr. Howie thought the most encouraging development at Ardmore has been the completion of a fine new hall in which there is a very well designed Little Theatre, a large music room and smaller rooms for individual practice. This building has been constructed largely from atmy hut material, but the acoustics are good, "It will be a very important part of the college, for it will enable students to enjoy music and drama, and to take part in their production, under almost ideal conditions." The hall will be officially opened on Wednesday, August 3. :