CANTERBURY ALL-STARS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 801, 26 November 1954, Page 23

CANTERBURY ALL-STARS

AND music in New Zealand-as in just about every country-has always had a large and enthusiastic following. What’s a parade without a few taradiddles on the piccolo or an outdoor service without the moving solemnity of the large brass? Of late, however, New Zealand brass bands have been moving into the concert hall with greater and greater success, encouraged by the new and interesting music being written for them by composers as eminent as Gordon Jacob and Ralph Vaughan Williams. New Zealand bandsmen were proud of the achievements overseas of the National Band of New Zealand, and not long after it* was disbanded on its return home, All-Star Bands were formed in Wellington and Canterbury. The Canterbury All-Star Band recorded a programme which will shortly

be heard from all YA and YZ stations, beginning at 3YA on Sunday, December 5, at 2.0 p.m. The All-Star Band’s items are selected from the programme of a public concert they gave in the Civic Theatre, Christchurch. Their conductor was Frank John, conductor of the Woolston Brass Band, and before that a wellknown bandsman in England. Soloists with the All-Star Band were Ken Smith, the brilliant Dunedin cornetist, and Brian Barrett, the young Hawera xylophonist. The band opens with the tuneful Raymond Overture, by Thomas; then follows the Maori traditional song "Hine e hine"; Curzon’s "March of the Bowmen"; "O Promise Me" (de Koven); a suite a ballet music from Swan Lake, by Tchaikovski, and "Harlequin," by Rimmer.