New Conductor for National Orchestra

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 763, 5 March 1954, Page 5

New Conductor for National Orchestra

AMES ROBERTSON, M.A. (Cantab.), A.R.C.M., since 1946 Director and Conductor of the Sadler’s Wells Opera, has been appointed Conductor of the National Orchestra of the New Zealand Broadcasting Service. He will take over his new post in August from Warwick’ Braithwaite, who has been interim con-

ductor since Michgel Bowles’s term expired in 1953. Making this announcement the other day, the Hon. R. M. Algie, Minister in Charge of Broadcasting, said, he had realised, net without anxiety, that, when the con-

ductorship of the National Orchestra changed, its repute and progress were at stake. "I am confident that both are secured by Mr. Robertson’s acceptance of the appointment I have offered him," said Mr. Algie. "Applications for the position closed on November 30, 1953," the Minister continued. "Nearly 70 were received,from New Zealand, Australia, South

Africa, Canada, Great Britain and Europe. Not only the number but the quality of the applications was gratifyingly high-a fact in which it is not fanciful to measure the credit which the National Orchestra has won. Most of the applications were lodged in London, where they were reviewed by Mr. C. B. McNair, Overseas Music Organiser for the BBC, Mr. Eric Warr, Assistant Head of Music Programmes, and Sir James Shelley, formerly Director of Broadcasting in New Zealand, with whom Dr. R. M. Campbell was associated at New Zealand House. This committee selected seven candidates for interview and its convinced and convincing recommendation was unanimously given to Mr. Robertson. Mr. William James, the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s Director of Music, most helpfully reviewed applications lodged in Australia. All papers and all reports were then carefully considered by the Committee of Advice I had appointed here-the New Zealand applications with’ special care-and this committee unanimously made the London recommendation of Mr. Robertson’s appointment its own, which I unhesitatingly accepted." James. Robertson was born in 1912 at Liverpool, and was educated at Win-

chester and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he played a great deal of chamber music, founded a college orchestra, and obtained first-class honours in classics and modern languages. Uncertain what profession to follow, he went as an exchange student to Leipzig, and studied conducting under Herman Abendreth. In the first few months he progressed so slowly that he decided to go into business. Having arranged to join the Rio Tinto Copper Company he returned to Leipzig to play out time and progressed so quickly that Abendreth tried hard to persuade him that his future lay in music. It was therefore, he says,’ in a somewhat unsettled frame of mind that he entered the world of copper, and after six weeks he beat a hasty retreat. On the advice of Sir George Dyson, who taught him at Winchester and who has since been his musical mentor, he enrolled at the Royal College of Music and there studied conducting with Constant Lambert, composition with C. H. Kitson and Gordon Jacob, and piano with Herbert Fryer. He took his A.R.C.M. as a solo pianist. His first appointment (apart from copper) was to the musical staff of the Glyndebourne Opera, where he derived

from Fritz Busch much helpful encouragement and a passion for Mozart. This engagement, says Mr. Robertson, "lasted for three paradisa] summers," in between which he worked first as a freelance accompanist and then as conduc-. tor and chorus master with the Carl Rosa (Touring) Opera Company. In 1939, blissfully unconscious of the approach of war, he left for Winnipeg to conduct an orchestra for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a large choral society, and a male voice choir, He was happy in Canada and might well have stayed put were it not for the war. In 1940 he returned to England and joined Air Ministry Intelligence as a civil servant, later receiving a commission. He served in Egypt, Malta, Palestine, Libya, French North Africa and Italy. Towards the end of his time abroad he found himself conducting symphony concerts with the Rome Radio, Naples and-Bari Orchestras. He was appointed Director of Opera at Sadler’s Wells soon after demobilisation, and has since conducted some 100 opera performances a year. He has done a fair amount of other choral and orchestral conducting, broadcasting, recording, adjudicating and lecturing. At present he is in the middle of a large series of children’s concerts. for the Liverpool Corporation. He is married and has a son aged three,