Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 810, 4 February 1955, Page 24

Open Microphone

LADY OF . SONG

ANY hundreds of letters from all over New Zealand expressed enthusiasm for 1ZB’s Sunday night search for a Lady of Song. Of the five who entered, the winner, selected on listener response, is Patricia Price, of Aucklander, or a visitor from some other series. of Sunday night half-hours from the radio theatre at 1ZB, at 9 o'clock,

entitled Lady of Song. Patricia sings with the ‘Auckland Radio Orches-

tra, under the direction of Ossie Cheesman, and acts as hostess ‘to guests appearing on the programme. Each Sunday night, she invites a personality to the show-perhaps a prominent Auckland, or a visitor from some other part of the world-who tells about his interests or his homeland. By way of return, Patricia sings a song appropriate to her guest’s homeland. This success for Patricia Price is an outcome of years cf study and hard work in training her voice. For seven years she has been learning singing from St. Mary’s School of Music in Auckland. and she has been a Competitions contestant and a Choral Society soloist.

IN THE MIDDLE EAST

* "]. FELL off the pyramid,’ Leonard Cottrell told a friend who asked him how he had hurt his leg when he limped back to London after a recent visit to the Middle East. Actually it turned out that he had caught a knee infection while he was in the Egyptian

desert. Mission to the Middle East, the series of Unesco programmes

now being broadcast from YA and YZ stations, is the-result of a journey Cottrell made for Unesco to Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Libya and Egypt. In this series he reports on the work of the various Unesco organisations and missions working in the Middle East, using the documentary style which -has made him one of the BBC’s most popular producers of travel programmes, It was in 1952 that he was seconded to Unesco’s Radio Division, and among the other programmes he made for Unesco were Mission to Mexico and Mission to Bangkok, Cottrell has had a long interest in the Middle East,.and last year he visited Saqqgara to see his friend Dr. Zakaria Goneim and prepare a _ pro-

gramme about the "New" Pyramid that Dr. Goneim had discovered. He said that he has "a passionate interest in Egyptology." He has many other interests, and once wrote a programme about the highwaymen of 18th Century England, called Stand and Deliver. He has also written a novel, and a book about the founder of London’s famous wexworks show, Madame Tussaud. ‘

QUARTET

nx \V HEN they returned a few years ago from the Royal College of Music, Glynne Adams and Elsa Jensen (who is in private life Mrs. Glynne Adams) were described as "self-confessed devotees of chamber music." So it isn’t

surprising that these two young violinists are leaders of the Auckland:

Chamber Music School Quartet now being heard in two. recorded recitals from X stations. The programmes were recorded at the Chamber Music School sponsored by the Auckland Regional Council of Adult Education last year. The other members of the Quartet are Winifred Styles (viola) and Valmai Moffett (cello). They play Dittersdorf’s Quartet in E Flat and Moeran’s Quartet : in A Minor.

AUCKLAND FLAUTIST

* = JE was one of the finest chaps you ever met." His name was Vic Cater, he was an Auckland flautist, and he died about a fortnight ago, leaving a wife and two grown-up sons. To his friends, both in musical circles and outside, Vic Cater was "generous; he would always do anybody a good turn." He was one of a musical family-his father,

George Cater, was a well-known bandmaster, his brother Herman, of

Hastings, plays the trombone, and his sister Molly in Auckland is a pianist. At home, Vic, the cabinetmaker, was always making something. In, music, his story runs parallel to the. growth of amateur music in Auckland. He was 49, and he had been playing the flute for about 30 years. In 1929, he played with Ted Henkel’s orchestra at the opening of the Civic Theatre in Auckland. He broadcast from 1YA when it was at Scot’s Hall in Symonds Street, then at France Street, and at the opening of the new 1YA studios in Shortland

Street before the war. He had been playing with the radio orchestras ever since, and for His Majesty’s Theatre, Toc H, "The Messiah," and playing flute obbligatos for local and visiting singers.

MUSIC FOR YOU

x "HE Bob Bradford Quartet which is at present entertaining YA listeners on Wednesday nights with a new series € Music for You, is not the first group F that Bob has got together. Listeners to the Canterbury Centennial broadcasts may remember the Bob Bradford Trio, which 3YA relayed from the Centennial

Industries Fair in 1950. Bob had his introduction to radio work back in 1932, when he appeared

with a six-piece orchestra.. Some years "later he toured the North Island with a band making stage, radio and dance appearances. After war service, he joined Martin Winiata’s Orchestra as pianis=,

but he is best knoWn to listeners through his Music for You broadcasts, in which he leads his own group. Bob is assisted in the present series by Coral Cummins, who has been singing with him for a number of years, and Rod Derritt. Coral Cummins sang with several bands before she joined Martin Winiata, who helped to perfect her intonation and polished her Style.

NEWS OF BROADCASTERS, "ON AND OFF THE RECORD wa ee on