Music for United Nations Week

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 795, 15 October 1954, Page 15

Music for United Nations Week

HIS year United Nations Week, from October 24 to 31, is being celebrated by the NZBS with a number of musical programmes from Unesco Radio. There is a series of 12 folk music programmes from different countries, which are being heard under the title of Music Round the World; a musical feature called Songs of Children’s Town; and an International Concert, whichg will be heard from a link of the YA stations at 4.0 p.m. on United Nations Day, October 24. International Concert is based on recordings made at the Unesco International Conference on Music Education held in Brussels recently. The meeting was organised in collaboration with the International Music Council, and was attended by musicians and educators from some 44 countries. Choral groups came from the, United States, Canada, Britain, Germany and France, and the programme is composed of items by these groups. They include the Temple University Choir from the United States, the Berlin Motet Choir, the Blundell’s School Motet Club from England, and a Belgian Training College Choir. These groups sing works ranging from Thomas Weelkes’s "Hark all ye lovely saints above" to Bach’s Motet No. 1, "Let us sing to the Lord a new song."

When children are happy, they like to sing, and there’s plenty of singing done in the International Children’s Village at Trogen, high in the Swiss Alps. Walter Corti, a Swiss writer, first suggested an international children’s village for war orphans about ten years ago, and the idea caught the public imagination. The Swiss children made it their own cause, and to earn money to build the Village they cleaned bicycles and cars, did odd jobs, and gave concerts, In the programme Songs of Children’s Town, there are songs sung by the children at Trogen and other "children’s towns" in Belgium, France and Italy. In the series called Music Round the World, listeners will be able to hear folk music of different countries which has been recorded by the Radio Division of Unesco. The records were compiled by special engagement with Alan Lomax, editor of the Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, and they include many old authentic songs not broadcast before. Seventeen countries are represented in thé series, ranging from Japan and Korea to Spain, South Africa, Ireland, Australia and New Guinea. These programmes will be heard from the YA and YZ stations at various times during the next two. weeks,