Singer Comes Home

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 536, 30 September 1949, Page 13

Singer Comes Home

HE daughter of a musical family once well known in the Wairarapa, Thelma Petersen, who left New, Zealand 36 years ago and subsequently gained considerable repute as a mezzo-soprano in Britain, is visiting her home country. She will be heard during the next few weeks in a series of recitals from 1YA, 2YZ, 1YZ, 1XH, and 1XN. Miss Petersen went to England in 1913 as a child«singer, and won many honours at the Royal College of Music. She ‘studied under Madame Kirkby-Lunn‘ (the famous contralto who toured New Zealand during the first’ World War) and made her first appearances in London at the Queen’s Hall promenade concerts. under the late Sir Henry Wood. In the early days of the BBC she was

‘among the first artists to bé broadcast, and in the years before the war the BBC sent her on a broadcasting tour of Norway. During the war she: was a member of the classical section of Ensa, and sang to troops and war workers in what were known as "Programmes of Good Music." She has made several recordings. | Although she is equally at home in lieder, ballad, opera, and_ oratorio, Thelma Petersen’s favourites are Norwegian folk songs (she is of Norwegian descent) and many of these songs will be included in her broadcast recitals in this country. -She will be heard from 2YZ at 9.30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 4, and at 8.0 p.m. on Wednesday, October 5. From 1YZ she will broadcast at 8.15 p.m. on Friday, October 7, and at 8.30 p.m. on Sunday, October 9. Later broadcasts ‘are from 1XH (on October 12 and 13), 1YA (on October 15 pe 19), and 1XN (on October 23 and 25) is