Carillonist Returns

Radio Record, Volume IV, Issue 29, 30 January 1931, Page 32

Carillonist Returns

Pioneer Club’s Welcome Wits high’ heaped laurels, won by talent, hard work and the will to succeed, Miss Gladys Watkins returns to her own Jand, and has been accorded warm welcome by. her fellow-coun-trymen who have followed, with sympathy and admiration, her upward and onward progress on that path to success which so often is "uphill all the way." At the reception tendered to the gifted carillonist at the Pioneer Club, many representative women were present, and the beautiful rooms of the -club appeared to advantage with silken . hangings, admirable lighting, and massing of gorgeous godetia and gladioli. In her short address regarding her studies abroad, garbed in graceful draperies of honey-coloured lace that enhanced the slim grace of the wearer, Miss Watkins spoke with

attractively modulated voice.and sihcerity of. expression, allied with a whimsical humour, and. was. followed with rapt attention as ‘she told of interesting factors in the playing of a carillon. Three essentials are. Knowledge of music, good hands, good feet, AND NO CORNS! For true appreciation of the music of bells, it would seem "so near and yet so far" is an excellent motto, and, as important here as elsewhere, the listening ear and the understanding heart are _ essential. "Never go so close that the overtones are. distracting,’ Miss Watkins. told us, "but be far enough away to be aware of the delicate nuances of the music. I think you will like .ecarillon musie, but for real delight in them the bells must be listened to in the right. way." It is good to realise that very. soon the Bells of Remembrance will peal over the city, and that "Ring out bell, to the wild sky" is no longer for us a Tennysonian phrase, but the prelude to musical consummation achieved bv the spell of Miss -Watkinge’

wizardry.-

H.V.

L.