"VALUABLE CARGO" ON WANGANELLA

Radio Record, Volume VII, Issue 52, 5 July 1935, Page 13

"VALUABLE CARGO" ON WANGANELLA

Gladys Moncrieff and Gil Dech

INTERVIEW WITH PIANIST

WHEN the Wanganella left Sydney last week she had on board a valuable cargo-specially addressed to the radio listeners of New Zealand. And when that "valuable cargo" walked down the gangway at Wellington last Monday into the grey mist of a winter morning there were old friends there to bid them welcome. The louder greeting was for Gladys Moncrieff-she is so well-known over here-but no less sincere was the greeting given Gil Dech, the noted pianist and conductor. Mr. Dech (he pronounces his name DESH), is very widely known as a recording artist and scarcely a day goes by that his records are not played from the New Zealand radio stations, On this occasion he will act as official accompanist to Miss Moncrieff who starts her New Zealand tour at Ayckland on Thursday, Next week, on Thursday, July 11, Wellington people

will have an opportunity of seeing him in action’ when an all-star celebrity concert is to be given in the Majestic Theatre, "I left. England to tour South Africa," said Mr. Dech to the "Radio Record" representative who sought him out after he left the boat, "and later went on to Australia, which I found so "much to my liking that I decided to stay there indefinitely, I was appointed to the position of musical director for the Columbia Gramophone Company in Sydney, aud later to the same position for Station 2GB, one of the leading commercial radio stations in Australia. "T have played all Miss Moncrieff’s accompaniments for her recordings. We did four new ones just before we leftJack Lumsdaine’s song, ‘Where the River Shannon Flows’-poor old Jack ig pretty sick, by the way-‘Love’s Young Dream,’ and two songs from the new talkie, ‘Naughty Marietta,’, ‘Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life,’ and ‘I’m Falling in Love.’ You should hear them over here shortly."