Australia Calling!

Radio Record, Volume VIII, Issue 24, 21 December 1934, Page 39

Australia Calling!

Items it Will be Worth Staying Up to Hear on Holiday | Programmes.

HRISTMAS week attractions on the air in Australia are very varied, and should provide plenty of entertainment for listeners who like late hours. Since New Zealand summer time is two hours ahead of Australia, it should be possible to hear the best of the Christmas week features from the New Zealand stations, and then turn to Australia for. further entertainment. Notable presentations on the programmes of the national stations for next week include two relays by 2FC from the New Tivoli Theatre of performances by the Royal Grand Opera Company, by courtesy of Sir Benjamin Fuller. Strauss’s "Die Fledermaus" is the first opera to be relayed, on Wednesday, December 26, and, two nights later, "Tannhauser" (Wagner) will be heard. These two operas will also be broadcast from 3LO on those evenings. Another theatre relay will be carried out by 2FC and 3LO, on Saturday, December 29, when the J. C. Williamson company’s performance of ‘The Cedar Tree" will be heard, broadcast from the Princess Theatre, Melbourne. This is another all-Australian musical comedy, which has been produced by J. ©. Williamson's following on the success of "Blue Mountain Melody," with Cyril Ritchard and Madge Elliot. "The Cedar Tree" is to be performed by the company which has been presenting the English musical comedy, "‘Jolly Roger,’" headed by Gladys Moncrieff, George Wallace and Alan Priora. The music is by Mrs. Varley Monk, and the dialogue and lyrics hy Edmund Barclay, well-known to Australian listeners as the author of many clever radio presentations, and Elaine Barclay respectively. Another notable performance will be heard when 3AR relays, on Christmas day, the centenary festival performance of Handel's **Messiah" by the Melbourne Philharmonic Society, under the conductorship of Professor Bernard Heinze. Artists featured on the programmes in Australia next week who are well known to New Zealand include Barend Harris, the popular bass-baritone, who toured New Zealand some months ago, and Senia Chostiakoff, the famous Russian tenor who has just concluded his tour of the New Zealand national stations, and has created a furore in every city in which he has performed. ; On the programmes, too, is Percy Grainger, the famous Australian pianist-composer, who is continuing his series of lecture-recitals from the Melbourne station. | The Australian Broadcasting Commission has announced that it has concluded arrangements for a tour of the national stations next year by Mr. Ray Agnew, another Australian who has made a name for himself overseas as both pianist and composer. Mr. Agnew is a young man, and his name is probably not nearly as well known on this side of the world as it is in England, where he is recognised as one of the foremost musicians of the modern school. It is certain that his tour, which is to take place early in the new year, will create great interest among musicians and music-lovers throughout the Commonwealth and in New Zealand. a