To Study Conducting

New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 555, 10 February 1950, Page 12

To Study Conducting

SWALD () CHEESMAN, although primarily a pianist, has been concerned with all branches of music. Before the war he was in Australia doing solo and | accompanying work in _ broadcasting there, and | he spent a good deal of time touring New Zea-. land as musical director and pianist of various stage shows. At 1YA Auckland, he organised © light orchestras and chamber music. He was in the Pacific area during the war, first as bandmaster for two anti-aircraft regiments, and then for eighteen months as musical director of the Kiwi Concert Party in the Pacific. On his discharge from the army he was appointed studio accompanist at 1YA. Mr. Cheesman was for two seasons conductor of the 1YA Studio Orchestra, and when the Na-

tional Orchestra was formed he became pianist, arranger and deputy conductor of the Auckland Group of. the National Orchestra. He has now been awarded a bursary to continue his studies overseas, and is | at present on the Rimutaka, which is _ making © her last voyage to England as | a Passenger ship. When he arrives in Mr. Cheesman will specialise _in conducting and. arrangement. He plans to do most of his work at the | BBC, and although he will receive individual instruction from eminent teachers, he expects to learn much from attending orchestra rehearsals, and watching, listening and studying what goes on at them, particularly the methods used for presenting orchestras for broadcasting. ° "The modern conductor," Mr. Chees,man says, "has to be something of a scientist as well; particularly men like | Sir Malcolm Sargent and Sir Adrian | Boult, who are. all the time coming up against the problems broadcasting

makes for a large orchestra. The shape of the room, and _ its ‘ construction materials, the placing of the various sections of the orchestra and the individual instruments ‘in relation to the microphones, and the design of the microphones themselves, all make an immense difference to the quality of the music received by the listener at his radio set." ] Mr. Cheesman feels that the -formation ‘of the National Orchestra has aroused immense interest in. orchestral music in New Zealand, and the quality of the young musicians now coming forward is very high. "Orchestras in secondary schools are reaching a standard one would not have thought possible a few years ago," Mr. Cheesman told The Listener, "and in a few years, there will be many young musicians available for orchestral work of a high order. Therefore it is possible to say that the formation of the National Orchestra has created in New Zealand a profession that did not exist before."