Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 818, 1 April 1955, Page 24

Open Microphone

ANNA RUSSELL, the celebrated concert comedienne, givés the first broadcast of her New Zealand tour this Thursday, March 31, ©so listeners should be prepared for gales of laughter from her audience at the Auckiand Town Hall. Zero hour is 8.15 p.m.,,and the relay will be from all YA stations, 3YZ and 4YZ. STORM WARNING _ 1: + a

SOPRANO AND TENOR

Auckland Festival last year were Andrew Gold, an Auckland tenor, who has been singing in England for some years, and his wife, the soprano Pamela Woolmore (see above). In the next few weeks they will be heard from YC stations in a series of recorded recitals of unusual and interesting works, some of which will be sung unaccompanied and. others with the Alex Lindsay Quartet

and Frederick Page (piano and harpsichord). Andrew Gold was one of the soloists at the Festival in Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, with the National Orches-

tra and the Christchurch Harmonic Society. He also produced the two Festival Operas, The

Telephone and The Man from Tuscany, in the first of which his wife took a leading role with Donald Munro, and in the second of which he himself also played the tenor lead. While they were here Andrew Gold and Pamela ‘Wool-

more also toured country towns in The Telephone (with the pianist. Janetta McStay) for the Auckland Community Arts Service. Andrew Gold also sang with the National Orchestra in. Christchurch and Dunedin, and both gave studio recitals. In the present series, which they recorded before they returned to England last July, Pamela Woolmore sings such works as Scarlatti’s Christmas Cantata (4YC next Tuesday; 2YC, Thursday), and songs by Kabalevsky and Arne (1YC, Sunday; 3YC, Thursday). Andrew © Gold sings Four Greek Folk Songs (2YC, Wednesday, and 4YC Thursday), and Five Sonnets by Edmund Spenser, set to music by Rubbra (3YC, Monday, and 1YC on Thursday). Another unusual work by Andrew Gold will be Ivor Gurney’s song cycle Ludlow and Teme, while Pamela Woolmore will also sing songs by Purcell and some early Italian_ songs. They will be heard together in duets from Mendelssohn’s Hymn _ of Praise, Monteverdi’s Coronation pot Poppaea, and other works. There are eight programmes in the series.

N.Z. COWBOY

* NE of New Zealand's most popular singers of cowboy songs is Jack Christie, formerly of Wellington, and ~ now living in Rotorua. Jack is probably best known for his song "New Zealand Cowboy,’ which he composed himself and recorded for a local company. This Song, and others sung by him, are frequently heard in request sessions from

the ZBs and other stations. Jack began broadcasting in Well-

ington in 1938, and in the following year joined the 2YA Camp Concert Party. He sang in local camp concerts until 1941, when he _ joined the R.N.Z.A.F.. While serving in the Pacific he continued to appear in camp concerts: he did shows for the American

Navy Goncert Party, and in 1946 toured , Australia and New Zealand. He made his first records in Wellington in 1948, -and was until recently fairly closely ‘ associated with the recording companies. Jack was heard in a programme from 1YZ last week with the pianist Barbara Cording. wi.

"GAY" IS HER OTHER NAME

LoS LIVELY interest and a_ former school teacher’s knowledge and understanding qualify "Gay" for her work in 1YA’s Children’s Session,. But » "Gay" is a versatile young lady. She is already well known to thousands of radio listeners by her real name — Noeline Pritchard, of Radio Roadhouse Noeline f

began her broadcasting career -five years ago by recording advertisements for an agency. Then she met producer Bill Austin, who introduced her to radio drama. Noeline was teaching in those days, and she had to find spare time for her radio. work. Noeline Pritchard’s

main interests are music, swimming, skiing; and, of course,

arama. oOohe was a member of the Auckland: University College Drama Society and took the leading role in the Combined Auckland Drama Club’s presentation of Christopher Fry’s The Lady’s Not for Burning. In 1952 and 1953 she went on tour with the Community Arts Service Theatre, a group sponsored by the Adult Education Service. Last year~she wag auditioned for Radio Roadhouse, and was chosen to play opposite Barry Linehan in that programme. At the same time Noeline was reading stories for the youngsters in the Children’s Session, then conducted by "Heather" (Frances Gunson), When Miss Gunson resigned recently "Gay" took over. | 3 +

AUCKLAND BARITONE

"~ PETER EVANS, the Auckland baritone. who will broadcast in the National Programme on Sunday, April 3, has been interested in singing all his life. He has been studying for the last five years and a half, but it is only in the past two years that he has taken his

singing seriously. Last August he gained the highest aggregaté points in his class at the Auck-

land Competitions, winning the Championship Gold Medal and the Charles

ast recitals last year-a programme of ‘trish songs and another of Hungarian folk songs-and he has also broadcast Scholarship. He gave two broad-

with the Auckland Studio Orchestra under Oswald Cheesman. He sings all the more _ serious kinds of music, but has a preference for grand opera. The programme of Irish songs to be sung by him on Sunday, April 3, at 4.0 p.m., incluces such fav-

ie So ~ ourites as "Phil the Fluter’s Ball," "The Wild Colonial Boy," "Father O’Flynn,’ "Ballynure — Ballad," and "She Moved Through the Fair." *

JOURNEY INTO MELODY

. ANYBODY who wants strings always "has the old obstacle of never being able to get enough," Don Richardson told us when we asked him about the formation of his orchestra, which is giving a series of 16 weekly broadcasts from 2YA on Wednesday nights under the title Journey Into Melody. "We are playing popular modern English dance music, and with eight strings we have the largest string section for an orchestra

of our kind in this country. I’ve more or less based the formation of the orchestra

on the Kobert Farnon Orchestra of England, and that’s why we're using one of his tunes as our theme and title-piece, Journey Into Melody. Besides the strings we have woodwinds, brass, piano and -drums. "I was born in Wellington and joined ae Kiwis at the end of the war at 17," -he said. "I went to Australia with them and stayed through their record-break-ing two years in Melbourne, playing -saxophone.and clarinet. I did quite a lot of the writing towards the latter

stages and was also deputy-conductor. While we were in Melbourne I studied theory and orchestration at the Melbourne Conservatorium. I left the Kiwis . in November, 1953, and went back to Sydney.-I intended going into business with a brother-in-law, but decided to stick to music. I played with several bands and then with Bobby Gibson’s band in Sydney. I came back home last July. "Before I started the present orchestra, which is purely a radio orchestra, I was teaching music and playing at the Majestic Cabaret. I teach accordion, piano, saxophone and clarinet, as well as theory and arranging. But I think, from my own experience, that arranging is hard to teach," he added. "It's largely a matter of experience and experimenting with ideas. The thing which gave me most help was working under Terry Vaughan. I used to be his official copyist when I was with the Kiwis, and that taught me a great deal. I do all my

arranging for the present series of broadcasts, and when I’m not conducting I sometimes help out on the bass clarinet." *

AFRICAN VISIT

URING the Royal Tour of New Zealand and Australia the BBC’s annual Christmas Commonwealth roundup, The Good Neighbours, which is being rebroadcast next week (see page 5), was produced in Sydney by Laurence Gilliam and Neil Hutchison, and written by John Thompson. the ABC’s

senior feature writer, Mungo MacCallum, ABC feature editor, and Alan Burgess, of the BBC. Now we have heard that John Thompson is going off to Africa. He will represent Australia in a team of radio men from the British Commonwealth who are preparing pro-

grammes which will be broadeast throughout the Commonwealth. In com-

pany with Laurence U1lliam he will spend several weeks on research and production of radio features about the Union of South Africa. The South African Broadcasting Corporation will provide a commentator and technical facilities. The African visit will produce material for the joint Commonwealth Feature Programme Exchange, the upshot of discussions at the Commonwealth Broadcasting Conference in London in 1952. We have also just heard from dney that Neil Hutchison, who is the ABC’s Director of Drama and Features, has left by air to study television in England and the U.S.A.

N The Listener of February 18 it was stated that Colin Horsley would begin "a six-week visit to his homeland at Wellington on April 23." This date was correct in reference to Mr. Horsley’s broadcasting engagements, but he is giving an earlier public recital in Wellington on April 20.

NEWS OF BROADCASTERS, ‘ON AND OFF THE RECORD PDPPOLPL LLL LL