John Ritchie

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 791, 17 September 1954, Page 29

John Ritchie

Mysic is a family affair with the Ritchies of Christchurch. and many of John Ritchie’s songs are sung by his wife, Anita Ritchie. John is first assistant to Dr. Vernon Griffiths in the Music Department of Canterbury University College. He is a former Fleet Air Arm pilot who received his musical education at King Edward Technical College,

Dunedin, at Otago University, and Trinity College, London. Besides being Senior Lecturer at Canterbury College, he is conductor of the Christchurch Liederkranzchen, the Addington Workshops (W.E.A.) Choir and the Gloucester Singers. One of his main interests is the performing of new music, and several works by Vaughan Williams, Gerald Finzi, Alec Rowley and Eric Thiman have received their first New Zealand performances under his baton. In 1948 he won the Philip Neill prize for composition, and two years later he was commissioned by the Canterbury Centennial Association to compose a Centennial Cantata. This work, called Then Laugheth the Year, was subsequently performed at the Centennial Festival of Country Choirs with notable success. In 1951 Station 3YA_ broadcast from the Civic Theatre in Christchurch the first performance of his setting for J. R. Hervey’s Centennial Ode, a work dedicated to the Canterbury Pilgrims. The setting was specially written for the Royal Christchurch Musical Society. In the current programme of Music by New Zealand Composers, listeners will be able to hear two of John Ritchie’s songs, "Prayer for Poverty" and "Under the Greenwood Tree." They are sung by Anita Ritchie, accompanied by R. Dixon. The broadcast times are 7.0 p.m. and 7.50 p.m., from 3YC and .2YC respectively, on Monday, September 20.