Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 819, 7 April 1955, Unnumbered Page

Open Microphone

PPP LDL OE NEWS OF BROADCASTERS, ON AND OFF THE RECORD

N.Z. SINGER

ce OR the recent 20th birthday celebration concert by the Schola Cantorum in Wellington I was invited by Stanley Oliver to visit Wellington and sing as a guest member of the choir," Olga Burton, soprano, told us recently when we asked her about her singing career. "I first studied singing in Wellington with Stanley Oliver and Anna Ginn," she said, "and sang as a chorister and soloist in the early years of the

Schola Cantorum." Olga Burton now lives in Auckland, and she

will be heard in the Sunday National Programme in the session N.Z, Singers, at 4.0 p.m. on April 17, singing a group of well-known ballads. She told us that she also learnt the violin in Wellington with the late Ava Symons and Leon de Mauny, and was a member of the old 2YA Orchestra. She. sang as vocalist with the Maurice Clare String Orchestra, and went to Melbourne in 1948 to study singing with Florence Austral. There she broadcast for the ABC. Later she went to England and the Continent, studying in London with the late Elisabeth Schumann and Roy Henderson. "Since returning to New Zealand in 1951, I have done frequent studio and

recorded recitals for the NZBS, and have been a soloist for Choral Societies and Music Festivals,’ she said.

SINGING FOR JOY

WE were looking at the Junior Song Book for Standards One, Two and Three in the Broadcasts to Schools programmes, and wishing they’d had such interesting songs when we were in kneepants, aprons and pinned-on hankies. Joan Easterbrook-Smith, who arranged the songs and takes the lesson on Tuesday afternoons, told us something about

her aims in running the session, "I wanted to make the songs a bridge for children of seven, eight and

nine between the rhythmic songs they learn in the Infants and the more elaborate work of the higher standards,’ she said. "So often the juniors get self-con-scious just when they should be learning the rudiments of time and notation easily." All the songs in the Junior Book are written in easy keys with simple accompaniments. Some have a descant and they can all be played on the recorder. This is an asset in country schools where there is often no piano. The recorder, too, is a sympathetic accompaniment to children’s light voices. The songs chosen are tuneful and rhythmic, so that whole groups of mixed country classes or

families can sing them. This sometimes has amusing results., Four children. once visited Mrs. EasterbrookSmith and _ sang round the piano for her. One little girl not yet of schoolage knew the words only by hearsay, and _- blithely’ carolled about "the

angels hobbling round my bed" and: the "turtle-ducks" of "The Twelve Days of Christmas." Mrs. Easterbrook-Smith receives many letters from children, parents and teachers. One man who comes from Tyneside sent her a most interesting explanation of "The Keel Row," whose words must have puzzled many

people. The children tell her their favourite songs which act as a guide for the future. The songs in the session. are sung by Freda Boyce, of Broadcasts to Schools, and Mrs. Easterbrook-Smith herself plays the piano. *

A LISTENER’S NOTEBOOK

NE of our most popular broadcasters on music, Owen Jensen, starts next * week a new session in the Sunday National Programme called A Listener's Notebook (April 17, 4.15 p.m.). He is going to discuss a major work each Sunday (beginning with Grieg’s Piano Con-

certo) and follow up his description with a recording of the work or as much of it as can be fitted into the time allotted to the broadcast. Those familiar with Owen Jensen’s previous broadcasts in programmes like Music Magazine and Fort-

nightly Review will know that he doesn’t analyse the music under discussion so much as talk about it in his own inimitable style, bringing it wonderfully alive and indicating the

composers intentions and the general background, structure and meaning of the work.

After the Grieg Concerto he will discuss on successive Sundays Beethoven’s "Emperor" Concerto, Beethoven’s Violin | Concerto, Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole, Dvorak’s ’Cello Concerto, Brahms’s Violin Concerto, Handel’s Concerto Grosso in D Major, two Vivaldi Concertos for Viola d’Amore and Orchestra (Op. 25, Nos. 2 and 4), Berlioz’s Harold in Italy, and Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A Major, K.488. The work discussed each Sunday will be rebroadcast from YC stations during the following week. Mr. Jensen, who had been living in Wellington for the past three years, recently returned to his old work in Adult Education in Auckland,

SON OF A PIONEER

x J JEFFERSON FARJEON, author of the short story "The Man Opposite,’ which will be broadcast in the Sunday National Programme at 2.0 p.m. on April 17, is the son of Benjamin Farjeon, an Otago pioneer who was Sir Julius Vogel’s partner in the ownership of the Otago Daily Times, and who subsequently returned to England to become a popular novelist. Writing to us from Ditchling, Sussex, Mr. Farjeon .

says: "As a penniless boy my father ‘wrote his way from England to Australia during the

early gold rush days, and when the goid fever spread to New Zealand in 1861 he did the same thing from Australia to New Zealand. But he did not stake out a claim in the Tuapeka goldfields as he had intended-he staked it out instead in the office of the Otago Daily Times, the newspaper which was born out of the Tuapeka rush. In the words of my sister, Eleanor Farjeon, ‘Vogel, who had the funds, was proprietor and editor;

Farjeon, who had _mone, was manager, sub-editor, contributor and frequent compositor.’ "My father had a great admiration for the Maoris," Mr. Farjeon continues, "and during one visit from ~them he taught one of their chiefs how to play chess. When the chief paid his next visit, he produced his own cheesboard and pieces, which he had made himself, and very nearly beat my father, who was an ~excellent player. I myself possess a greenstone which the Maori chief gave him." Mr. Farjeon | adds that his story "The Man Opposite" is one of over 200 short stories he has written. Several of them have been broadcast before by the NZBS. oy

CALLING RAOUL

A A NOTE on this page a week or two ago " ~ about long-distance requests from the men at the Campbell Island meteorological station mentioned the fact that 2XG is now calling Campbell regularly. It appears that 2XG has taken over from 2XA Wanganui, because the meteorologists on Campbell have been called in 2XA’s

Thursday night Request Session for some years. In recent weeks requests from them have been

scarce, and it seems likely that reception of 2XA has deteriorated. However, 2XA also calls each Thursday night the meteorological men on Raoul Island in the Kermadec Group. At one time some of the men at Raoul Camp came from Wanganui, and when they got there they found they could receive their local wees ee > Ms nt ee eee ee ae

station very well. Consequently a stream of cabled requests flowed from Raoul, and when the men were relieved the new inhabitants took over. The Chathams were also at one stage on 2XA’s request list, but the particular family who were called have now returned to New Zealand.

HORTICULTURIST

x \V HEN the whistle blows for half-time on Palmerston North Rugby fields the man with the whistle is likely to be Geoff Northcote, a well-known referee who is probably better known to listeners as the conductor of 2ZA’s Saturday morning Garden Session. Geoff is a horticulturist whose main hobby js referee.

ing. He has belonged to eight Referees’ Acscorcia-.

tions throughout the : country, and has carried the whistle for

many important representative games during the last few years, including matches with international touring sides. He was born in England, came to New Zealand when he was 16, and spent his early years in this country working for 10/- a week on dairy farms, sheep farms and orchards. After serving with the 2nd N.Z.E.F. in Egypt and Italy, he took up a rehabilitation bursary at Massey, Agricultural College. There he gained his Diploma in Horticulture, and was for four vears orchard instructor at Nelson and then horticultura] instructor in charge of the Motueka district for two and a half years. He now works for a seed company in Palmerston North. Geoff is no stranger to radio. While living in Nelson he gave several talks on agricultural and horticultural subjects from 2XN. Geoff is a keen home gardener himself, and has judged the Produce sections at many A. and P. Shows and the Rose Sections of various Horticultural Society Shows.

FILM REVIEWER

ILM reviewing has its occupational hazards, according to Wynne Colgan. "T was once invited to ‘step outside a minute if you don’t like it’ by a hulking patron who kept drumming his feet on the back of my stall," he said to us recently: Wynne, who is~ Auckland’s deputy-City Librarian, is vice-president of the Auckland Film ae He be-

came interested in film criticism while at university, and has been reviewing films from 1YA for the past five years. "You often hear people bewail the fact that better films aren’t made," says

Wynne. ‘Remembering though that the movies are a mere 50 years of age, and also ‘an. art

form that’s at the same time a mammoth industry, the wonder is that so many good productions do slip through the sausage machine." What are some of these good films? Here are the ones that Wynne rates highly: Orphée, The Ox-Bow Incident, Battieship Potemkin, On the Town, Les Enfants du Paradis, City Lights, A Night at the Opera, and The Way to the Stars. Wynne has a high regard for films made in non-English-speaking countries: He would like to see more of them exhibited in New Zealand, particularly films from Scandinavia, and some Japanese films, too,