Music Students Need Help in London

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 781, 9 July 1954, Page 20

Music Students Need Help in London,

SAYS

ANDREW

GOLD

send his firm’s representative to London and then forget all about him until he returned some years later-if he retutned at all. But that, in effect, is just what New Zealand does with her representativés in the arts, sent to study abroad, often with Government assistance. Even if one considers only the strictly business side of the matter, there is a Very. urgent need for some resident representative, a sort of cultural attache, to givé these young people the guidance needed if New Zealand is to get full value from the money spent on them in bursaries." Andrew Gold, chairman of the New Zealand Music Society in London, said this when The Listener met him in Auckland on the eve of a tour which was to include 44 engagements in 45 days and to take him from Dunedin in the south to Kaitaia in the north. Mr. Gold, with his wife, Pamela Woolmore, a talented soprano, came back to Auck-land-his: home city-primarily to take part in the recent festival of the arts, but bothumiisicians have contracted to sing in §@yéral broadcast programmes. They haye*already been ms from a number stations, and this Sunday, July 11, they will present a, joint studio recital from Wellington to be broadcast aN sane businessman would ' on link by the four YA stations at 8.15

p.m, Other broadcasts next week will be heard from all YCs on July 13 and 15, and from 2XG on"July 18. "Students should not be spoon fed," Mr. Gold said, "but music and the arts are a cut-throat business in London. Talent can be wasted if the student does not have the right contacts or cannot find the right teachers. It is not uncommon for new arrivals to go to teachers who are unreliable to say the least. And months can be wasted in the search for a satisfactory place to live. Even after finding a good room and moving a piano in one may find after a week that every time one practises the woman next door begins banging on the wall. Regardless of the justice of the case one just cannot work under such conditions. There are scores of other problems facing students from abroad in London which could be solved to the greater benefit of all concerned, with the help of a cultural attaché who knows the ropes both in New Zealand and London. This man would need to be a musician with established contacts with teachers, agents, the BBC-and the NZBS. He could be invaluable to the NZBS as liaison officer on the spot with the BBC; and his guidance would enable our students to make the most of their opportunities. "Well-known agents agree that it takes from five to seven years for even

a first-class musician to establish himself. The student seeking further experience, or trying for a foothold in music after his bursary has expired, is often in for a very lean time. He would be helped tremendously by expert advice on such matters as who to see to arrange auditions, how to go about financing and staging a recital and so on." Asked about the National Orchestra, Mr. Gold said he had been amazed by the quality of the recording of its work played in the Third Programme. "I had heard varying reports of its ability, often cutting accounts by illinformed so-called musicians, and had expected ~ something worse than a-third-rate British Orchestra. I wouldn’t be pretentious enough to claim it is as good as the Phil-

harmonia; but it is» certainly a very good orchestra by any standard. With regular infusions of new blood it should become very fine indeed-one of the finest in the Southern Hemisphere. "The National Orchestra’s new conductor, James Robertson, is an excellent acquisition, a fine musician with a great deal of experience. He is a Mozart lover, delighting in works which all singers and instrumentalists admit are most difficult to present in an artistic way. He is also an authority on modern languages-the Maori tongue will probably attract him-has a strong but friendly personality, and is a fine agree speaker and lecturer." Mr. Gold believes that music is a vital ingredient in full and healthy living. "Many people will quarrel with this," he told The Listener, "but music cannot be expected to pay. It must be subsidised. And I believe that if music were taken out of life altogether those who complain the loudest about its cost and those who simply treat it as a sort. of mental backwash to the day’s activities by turning their radios on at 7.0. a.m. and leaving them on all day, would | be the first to protest. Music is functional, too. Some of the greatest works were written to order, for an express purpose, just as today some composers write for plays and films. There would be nothing out of place in large organisations, city councils, big business firms and the like, sponsoring good music. New Zealand businessmen could well take a hint from the fact that one of Britain’s largest department store combines supplies the Glyndebourne Opera Company with all the materials it needs free; and supports its own operatic and orchestral societies. And why shouldn’t we have Opera instead of soap opera?" Andrew Gold and Pamela Woolmore will be given a farewell concert by the Auckland Festival Society.on July 29, and will leave for England soon afterwards. Mr. Gold will begin a concert tour of Wales on September 19, and after that, he says, engagements come thick and fast right up to next Good Friday, when he will sing in Messiah with the Cambridge Choral Society.