Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 34, Issue 877, 25 May 1956, Page 18

Open Microphone

NEWS OF BROADCASTERS ON AND OFF THE RECORD

‘RANK managers we’ve known were never like this, but then, of course, we aren’t golden-blonde and good looking, nor Irish either, like the popular vocalist Joan Regan, seen above. During the war, it seems, Joan lived in Cornwall, where at 17 she met and married an American pilot. In the United States she lived as an ordinary housewife and became the mother of two- sons. Back in England after her

marriage broke up she told her bank manager one day that she wanted to become a singer, and when he arranged a meeting with Bernard Delfont the impresario was struck by Joan’s talent and good looks. Her first records set disc fans clamouring, her versions of "If I Give My Heart to You" and "Merry Go Roun¢s and Swings" were best sellers, and she quickly became a favourite in radio and variety and on television. Her latest releases, frequently heard from NZBS stations, are "The Rose and the Flame,’ backed by "The Shepherd Boy," and "Just Say You Love Her," backed by "Nobody Danced With Me." * Sx months as a guest of the .English and Scottish Young Farmers’ Clubs and a shorter stay on the Continent and in America have made Derek Fechney more enthusiastic than ever about Y.F.C. work in New Zealand. "If the Y.F.C. Federation can become the strongest youth organisation in a largely industrial country like Britain I think it should be doubly so in New Zealand," he says. ; Mr. Fechney, who conducts the session for Young Farmers and Country Girls’ Clubs from 3YA on Thursday

nights, went to Britain about 18 months ago. With another young Canterbury farmer, Derek Quigley, he had been selected to represent New Zealand Young Farmers on an exchange visit

sponsored by the New Zealand Meat and Wool Boarcs. In Britain they stayed with | farmers’ families and_ travelled extensively looking at farming and marketing methods. Not yet out of his twenties, Mr. Fechney works a 900-acre sheep farm with his brother at Aylesbury, 22 miles from Christchurch. He first became interested ‘in the Y.F.C. movement when he was at St. Andrew’s. College, Christchurch. Later, at home. he joined the Darfield Club, and has been an active member ever since. Besides having a

oer wre spell as chairman of his local club, he has been vice-chairman of the Christchurch District Committee and a celegate to the Canterbury Council. * 8 IKE Dinu Lipatti, whom we mentioned last week, the young Edin-burgh-born composer Thea Musgrave studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, after making a start at her home University, and four years ago she became the first British subject to win the Lili Boulanger Memorial Prize for composition. Miss Musgrave, whose Cantata for a Summer’s Day is played in one of the YC programmes from the 1955 Edinburgh Festival (1YC, May 30), has written works ranging from songs and chamber music to a ballet. Miss Musgrave is herself heard on the same programme: she plays the continuo in a Handel cantata. * "T HERE will be quite a reunion in Wellington next month when, with his artist wife, Dr. Charles Thornton Lofthouse arrives as examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, for waiting. to meet them will be their daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs, Francis Lockyer. Mr. Lockyer is Assistant Trade Commissioner for the United Kingdom in New Zealand. Although Dr. Lofthouse is shown below at the piano, his special instrument is the harpsichord, and he is considered ene of the best continuo players in Britain. A professor of the Royal College of Music, he already has a musical link with New. Zealand through his former pupil Dorothea Franchi. At Christmas, 1949, Dr. Lofthouse conducted the London University Musical Society’s choir in a first performance of Miss Franchi’s "The Oxen" in St. Paul’s Cathedral. The Patron of the Society, Princess Margaret, was among those present. This concert of Christmas music has become something of a tradition since Dr. Lofthouse first took his choir of 400 voices to St. Paul’s in 1942. Among other works specially written for the Society which it has recently performed under Dr. Lofthouse are "On Christ’s Nativity," by another of his pupils, Alan Ridout, and "All This Night." by Gerald Finzi.