Junior Orchestra's Concert

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 890, 24 August 1956, Page 9

Junior Orchestra's Concert

"IT is an orchestra with a continually changing membership," said Dr. Charles Nalden, discussing the recorced concert by the Auckland Junior Symphony Orchestra which 1YC will broadcast at 8.26 p.m. on Saturday, September 1. "We build the orchestra to a peak and then, suddenly, we lose a lot of players-a most frustrating business," he added. "For example, 26 of the 80 players were lost to the orchestra at the beginning of this year, nearly all of them having left Auckland. But this sort of thing is only to be expected in an orchestra which trains young musicians to fill places in more mature groups." Dr. Nalden, who was recently appointed Professor of Music at Auckland University College, said that only 25 per cent of the players were drawn from the university, and not all of them from the music school. For most of the players music was a spare-time activity. For this reason, and because of the limited rehearsal time available, the orchestra gives only one concert a year. During

this period Dr, Nalden has the task of striking a balance between the ‘sections, This is difficult because, although the strings are quite adequate, many of the woodwind and brass players have had little or no training when they join. Peter Musson, who is now with the National Orchestra, joined the Junior Symphony as a clarinet player, switched to the bassoon, and was taught to play it by George Hopkins. Other woodwind players have been similarly started from scratch. The Auckland Junior Symphony Orchestra was formed by Gordon Cole, music master at Avondale College, in 1947-48, and Dr. Nalden has‘ been its conductor since 1950. The concert to be broadcast by 1YC was recorded last October in the Town Hall, and includes the Piano Concerto No. 2 by Rachmaninoff (soloist, Russell Channell). Geoffrey Skerrett, who is the soloist in the Handel Organ Concerto No. 9, studied for two years at the Royal College of Music, London, on a Government Overseas Bursary, and is now completing his

music degree. He is organist at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Khyber Pass.