Variety In Proms Programmes

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30338, 14 January 1964, Page 9

Variety In Proms Programmes

Under an American conductor, the National Orchestra will begin its 1964 concert season with the Proms, to be held on four consecutive nights from Monday, February 3, to Thursday, February 6, in the Civic Theatre.

The guest conductor will be Clyde Roller, professor of the ensemble department of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. The opening night will feature a popular group of American works—a suite from Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess,” and with Oswald Cheesman as piano soloist his Rhapsody in Blue, “El Salon Mexico,” by Aaron Copland, and Don Gillis’s Symphony No. si, called “Symphony for Fun.” The programme will also feature Johann Strauss’s Overture to “The Gypsy Baron” and the ballet suite, “Souvenirs,” by Samuel Barber. The leader of the N.Z.B.C. Concert Orchestra, Ruth Pearl, will be the soloist on February 4 in Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1. Opening with the overture to “The Mastersingers,” by Wagner, the “Afternoon of a Faun,” by Debussy, and Dances of Brittany by the Wellington composer, Larry Pruden, the evening will close with Richard Strauss’s tone poem “Till Eulenspiegel.” A major work will be Prokofiev's “Classical” Symphony, No. 1 in.D. On the following night, the Auckland soprano, Elisabeth Hellawell, will sing arias from “Tosca,” “Louise,” and “La Traviata” in a varied programme opening with the Overture to “Mignon” by Thomas. Variations on a theme of Haydn (“St. Antoni Chorale”) by Brahms will be followed by a suite from Hanson’s opera “The Merry Mount.” Two Elegaic Melodies by Grieg and the bright

Capriccio Espagnol by Rimsky-Korsakov. The last promenade concert features Janetta McStay who will play Piano Concerto No. 2 by Shostakovich, a work which she introduced to New Zealand audiences. The symphonic work in the programme, which includes Brahms’s Academic Festival Overture, the Polonaise from “Eugen Onegin,” by Tchaikovski, and Dance Rhythms, by the American composer, Wallingford Riegger, will- be another Tchaikovski work, his Fifth Symphony. In July, 1960, Arthur Fiedler invited Dr. Roller to be guest conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in an Esplanade concert. This invitation was repeated upon two occasions in 1961, and in the summer of 1962 Dr. Roller was invited to conduct the last three performances of the Esplanade concerts.

It was at this time that he was invited to join the faculty of the Eastman School of Music.