1957 MOBIL SONG QUEST

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 929, 31 May 1957, Page 5

1957 MOBIL SONG QUEST

HE sound of singers seeking a £300 prize will shortly be heard throughout the land. They will be competing in the Commercial Division’s 1957 Mobil Song Quest, described as a "ereat, Dominion-wide, racio search to find New Zealand’s best singers." The winner will get £300, the second £100, and the third £50. Each of thirteen district finalists will earn £20. Conditions of entry remain as before, except that the winner of last year’s quest is disallowed from competing. In form, the quest will be the same as last year. Would-be competitors will be given a preliminary audition at their nearest Commercial station. and about

40 selected for each district contest. In four weekly programmes, these contestants will broadcast one song each, and a weekly winner will be chosen by two district judges. The four winners, plus two "recalls," will then each record two songs for adjudication by the National panel of judges, sitting in Wellington. These judges will pick one finalist from each of the 13 districts. On October 1 these finalists will perform at a public concert in Wellington (with the judges listening-in at a near-by studio), the national winners will be announced, and the prizes awarded.

The listener will hear from his local Commercial station first the district contest, extending over four weeks; then, for 13 weeks, successive broadcasts of the winning six from other ateas; and, finally, the concert from * Wellington. Most of the district judges, and all the national ones, are new to the contest. The national panel this year consists of Stanley Oliver, H. Temple White, and Ashley Heenan. Stanley Oliver, O.B.E., Hon. F.T.C.L., is a musician best known as the founder and conductor of Wellington’s famed Schola Cantorum. Until its recent dissolution,

this choir was one of the few New Zealand musical institutions widely known and esteemed abroad. H. Temple White, O.B.E., has been a professional musician for 53 years, organist and choirmaster of Wellington’s Taranaki Street Wesley Church since 1913, and: a conductor for various choral societies. He conducted’ a performance by 13,000 children for Her Majesty during the Royal Tour of New Zealand. He has adjudicated at all the leading New Zealand festivals and at the City of Sydney Eisteddfod. Ashley Heenan, Mus. Bac., has studied composition at the Royal College’ of Music and some of his orchestral works have been performed by’ the’ National and Alex Lindsay Orchestras. °A number of his songs have been published overseas, and his Sea Songs, for baritone and orchestra, have been- broadcast by the BBC. He is on the staff of the NZBS Concert Section. To ensure reasonably comparable musical standards in the works chosen for performance, entrants for the contest are given a list of 252 ballads to choose from, and must be prepared to sing any one of four specified ‘by them. Programmes, consequently, will be varied, and, if last year’s contest is a guide, of high standard. Mobil Song Quest will be on the air ‘next Thursday (June 6). from.3XC (7.0 p.m.), 2ZA, 2XA, 2XN (7.30); all ZBs, 1XH and 4ZA (8.30); and from 2XG on June 7, at 7.30 p.m. It will be heard from the other X stations from the following week, 9