New Conductors For National Orchestra

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30342, 18 January 1964, Page 16

New Conductors For National Orchestra

Mr Speight showed Squires a letter which had been referred to by “K.” “In criminal jargon I have heard the term ‘joint’ used to refer to a pistol or to dope or opium,” said Squires. A detective sergeant, John Francis Stevenson, of the Hastings C. 1.8., said he saw Jorgensen on December 11 at the Freeman’s Bay Hotel. Interest In Wilby He said he told Jorgensen he wanted to search the premises at 37A Anglesea street, and that he was particularly interested in a telegram sent to Gerald Wilby. He interviewed Jorgensen at the Central Police Station about his associates and movements. Jorgensen made a statement, which witness produced and read. Jorgensen said in this statement that it was further to the statement he had made previously. Jorgensen said he wished to correct a statement he had made earlier that he was out on the night- of Wednesday, December 4, between about 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. He said he had gone to a party “to see a strip” on the Friday night, but that that was the only night he was out that week. Jorgensen detailed his relationship with Wilby, Walker and Speight. He said in his statement that he met Gillies in Greymouth or Westport in 1953 or 1954. He met Gillies again about two or three months before making his statement Jorgensen said in his statement he had not known Gillies to have had a job during his time in Auckland. Gillies “put the bite on him” every time he saw him. The last time he saw Gillies was about a week before the statement was made, when he was walking through the New Criterion Hotel. Jorgensen said in his statement he had heard that Speight had knocked Walker out; that he had heard they had been “blueing” on the Wednesday night before they were shot. Stevenson said he found Gillies on December 31 in the Civic Hotel. Gillies’s face was bruised and lacerated and he said he had come off “second best” in a fight the night before. He arrested Gillies and took him to the detective office. The hearing was adjourned until Tuesday morning.

(From Our Own Reporter) WELLINGTON, January 17. The National Orchestra and associated orchestral activities will soon be operating under foreign-born batons. The new principal conductor will be Italian-born Juan Matteucci, a South American, aged 42, from Chile. The associate conductor will be Laszlo Halto, aged 33, a British subject born in Hungary.

The 100 applications from most parts of the world for the principal conductorship was the largest number ever received for such a post. Juan Matteucci will take up his appointment in July. Described variously as an “exciting personality with great musicality, fiery intensity and an extraordinary sensitivity,” Matteucci has received considerable praise from music critics all over the world. Since taking up professional conductorship, he has travelled extensively within and out of South America, giving on an average 100 concerts a year. In spite of his prolific musical wanderings, he is still able to claim that in the last nine years with the Chilean Philharmonic Orchestra, he has not repeated a single work in any performance. His repertoire now encompasses a wide variety of

works from many countries and periods. The associate conductor Laszlo Halto comes from a different, but equaUy varied, musical background. Born in Budapest, he studied under Zoltan Kodaly and Matyas Seiber. While still at the Franz Liszt Academy of music there, Halto founded the Budapest Madrigal Ensemble, later graduated with a first class degree in 1952, and was then appointed music producer and conductor for Radio Budapest. After moving to Britain in 1956, he obtained a degree in musicology and formed the Kodaly Choir and Orchestra at Merton College, Oxford, where he is now director of music. Halto’s many musical activities in Britain have included lecturing and concert work at summer schools and music festivals and the editing of old music. His work has received much favourable comment from the British press.