Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 742, 2 October 1953, Page 18

Open Microphone

NEWS OF BROADCASTERS, ON AND OFF THE RECORD,

By

Swarf

ESSIE McLENNAN, SuperJ visor of Women’s Programmes for the Commercial Division of the NZBS, has left the Service to be married to Dr. W. G. Goddard, of Australia, a specialist in Oriental languages. She will be succeeded by Elsie Lloyd, of 2ZB. "I’ve

loved every minute of my broadcasting career," Miss McLennan told me the other day. "I couldn’t have been associated with a better group of women. It’s all nonsense to say that women can’t work together. Numbers of new personalities came into radio during my period and I have watched them grow up in the job and become accomplished radio people. That is one of the nicest memories I shall take away with me." This very busy woman added: "If I had been satisfied to do one of the three things I’m attempting to do at this moment---leave my job, get married and leave New Zealand -I would be finding it easy; but doing all three simultaneously is making life rather hectic." Jessie McLennan, who is now about to go abroad, joined the NZBS in 1939. She has held the post of Supervisor of Women’s Programmes for the Commercial Division since 1948. Elsie Lloyd has been on the staff of the NZBS for 11 years, and in charge

of 2ZB’s Women’s Hour since its inception. Before coming to New Zealand she was a school teacher in England. She is a member of the committee of the Wellington Repertory Theatre and an amateur producer, and she is also one of the original members of the Wellington Thespians. Her advice on theatrical affairs, and. particularly on how to apply stage make-up, is often sought by aspiring amateur actors, and she has frequently lectured on the subject. ~ *

VIRTUOSO OF THE DOUBLE-BASS

"BLUE TANGO," Epsom, Auckland, asks for information about Leroy Anderson, American composer, and the publication of his photograph. Although Leroy Anderson is one of the younger musical set in America, he already has behind him. some years of musical activity and a considerable output. He

was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, of well-to-do par-

ents, who gave Leroy an education as thorough as it was wide. He soon became immensely popular with teachers and fellow pupils through his talent for improvisation on the organ and piano. After Cambridge, he enrolled at Harvard and gtaduated M.A. in 1929-30. Later he studied the double bass, an instrument which seems to mean more to Bostonians than anybody else, for the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s conductor, Koussevitsky, who died in 1951, became a virtuoso of the double bass. Eventually Leroy Anderson’s proficiency on this instrument won approval even from the famous conductor. Anderson became Director of the Harvard University Band and also accepted an appointment as tutor in the division of music at Radcliffe College, a position which he held from 1930 to 1932, In the same period he was organist and choirmaster of the East Congregational Church, Milton, Massachusetts. Then the unpredictable Anderson’ resigned from these positions and joined the New York National Guard, in which he served until 1940. During this period he composed two works, Jazz Pizzicato and Jazz Legato. From 1943 until 1945 Anderson was in the U.S. Army Intelligence. On demobilisation he went back to music, mage a name as an orchestral. conductor, and acted as guest artist for many symphony orchestras. One of his best-known compositions is Chicken Reel, played by the Boston Pops Orchestra conducted by Arthur Fiedler. ‘Sorry, "Blue Tango," no photograph is available. +

TELEVISION DEMONSTRATED

sy yr BROADCAST ‘television, as distinct from the closed circuit system shown in Wellington two. years ago, was demonstrated to about 100 peopleguests of the Wellington firm of Collier

and Beale, makers of the apparatus, in conjunction with H. W. Clarke. N.Z._

Ltd.-the other afternoon. P. C. Collier opened. the programme and introduced two focal entertainers, who appeared on the screen, Their items were followed by shots of Wellington scenery taken from the studio windows and accompanied by a commentary explaining difficulties met in televising this type of programme. Then came a cartoon televised first by projecting the image on to a screen in the studio and subsequently photographing it from the

screen. The programme ended with shots of magazine pictures and other still subjects demonstrating the clarity and detail that can be secured on the screen of the receiving set.

TWENTY YEARS LATER

a MEMORY turned a knob, and for the mind’s eye the planned chaos-on the floor below the cat walk dissolved into the orderly, almost pompous, silence of a studio in the sub-basement of the BBC headquarters at Broadcasting House, writes the Overseas Press

Section of the BBC. ‘The mind’s eye was_ looking back over nearly

20 years, when that sub-basement studio, originally designed for sound broadcasting, was being used for tele-vision-when the fish-like eye of a lens set in flat boxes on tal] stands peered down on the yellowed faces and purpled lips of the first- TV artists. Only 20 years ago, and now, this. Seen from the narrow gallery under the roof of the big studio at Lime Grove, "this" was the rehearsal for a production of Shakespeare’s King John. Five — or was it seven?-separate scenes had been set up in different parts of the studio. Actors and actresses in period costumes strolled in from dressing rooms and make-up rooms. A wardrobe mistress made emergency adjustments to the hem of a flowing robe, a make-up assistant with pencil and powder-puff repaired a smudged complexion. A stage manager, wearing headphones, drifted on to the floor. Suddenly there was hot, brilliant light, but somehow stopping short of the hard glare one expected. Behind and on the cameras men crouched like white-coated gnomes, peering, fondling their charges, listening through headphones to a voice that only they could hear. And across the way, in a room of State, King John and_ his — relaxed as they waited for Scene In the studio next door was half a boathouse, gaily garlanded, ready for half an hour of light music. Opposite

it was three-quarters of a library ready for Members of Parliament to discuss the news of the day.'In a near-by frame was the caption of the programme, a white card bearing the words "In the News." Perched on a desk against the semblance of a window was the announcer on duty, swinging a leg as he discussed a script with a producer. Alongside them on a desk was a neat little model of a drawing-room, furnished with doll’s house furniture..In one corner was a large transparent screen, almost cinema size, with a picture projector behind it. It was blank then, but with the projector in action it becarhe a background cloth of infinite variety. capable of changing instantaneously from a Parisian . street to a tropical beach or the skyline of London. The pieces came together in a room. that looks down on the studio through a large window. Here sit the producer and his assistants in front of a switchcovered box which makes all the pieces fall into their allotted places. Two screens in the room show the producer what he is putting out now and what he will want to put out next-Transmis-sion and Preview are their labels, Out of sight but never out of the minds of the people behind the programmes are the carpenters, plasterers, scene shifters and the thousand other members of the team whose work reaches a climax tonight, and tomorrow night, and for an endless sequence of nights to come. *

TALES FROM ROTORUA

URING the last three months; listeners to Station 1YZ Rotorua have been hearing a series of scripts entitled Phillip Tapsell, Sailor and Trader, compiled by Enid Tapsell. They were read :

by Harold Grierson, who last year wrote and read a seriesecalled Te Kaha Calling and

Pot-Pourri Tongariro. Now he has compiled three more under the title Romantic Coromandel, describing a tour of the peninsula, kauri milling, gold mining and other activities. The last of these will be broadcast on Thursday, October 8, after the station announcements at 7.0 p.m, Harold Grierson tells me that his next scripts. will consist of a series of humorous events that have occurred during his own life, starting from his efforts td be an amateur steam engine-driver in a small bush sawmill about 30 years ago.