Accompanist Has Aided Singers For 50 Years

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30594, 10 November 1964, Page 2

Accompanist Has Aided Singers For 50 Years

For 50 years Mrs W. E. Olds of Christchurch has been accompanying singers in examinations, competitions, festivals and public performances, giving them confidence and the comforting feeling that someone was right behind them. “From the age of seven, when I began learning music, accompanying was what I wanted to do. I never had ambition about being a concert pianist,” she said yesterday.

When she was a small child a wellknown bass-baritone, Mr John Hamill, was a close friend of her family. “I used to sit and listen to him singing in our home and think how wonderful it would to play for him. He was my inspiration, that was how it all began,” she said.

Scores of community organisations in the last halfcentury have relied on Olive Olds to provide the musical programme for their functions, knowing they will get quality performances. She has played for the Christchurch Technical College folk dancing class, was organist at the Edgeware Road Methodist Church for eight years, and at one time trained the glee club of the Mairehau Women’s Institute. She is very much part of the Canterbury Women’s Club and the Pan-Pacific and South-east Asia Women’s Organisation, where she provides a musical interlude at monthly meetings. For 20 years she arranged programmes and was the accompanist for the Justices of the Peace Association, resigning only three years ago. She served the women’s auxiliary of the Harmonic Society for 20 years and has been playing for the Scottish Society for 20 years. Mrs Olds gives her services voluntarily to many other groups, including the English Speaking Union, the Royal Commonwealth Society, the Royal Overseas League, the women's section of the R.S.A., the women’s branch of the Citizens’ Association and the National Club.

She has accompanied singers in radio broadcasts and recently, for the first time, on a television programme.

“It all takes time, but I love it," she said. There is hardly a church

group of any denomination in Christchurch for which she has not played in some capacity. Such is her wide circle of musical friends and students, Mrs Olds is never at a loss to collect a group of , singers or elocutionists to take to a function. ENCOURAGEMENT

Many singers go to her home to practise with her when they need a little help and encouragement. “If I think any of them are suitable I remember them when I am arranging a programme. It gives them good experience for singing in public,” she said.

A warm-hearted, generous woman, Mrs Olds does not quibble at last-minute requests to play. “When the late Sir Sidney Holland was first elected to Parliament, his supporters held an evening in his honour and arranged a lovely musical programme, but completely forgot about engaging an acompanist,” she laughed. “They rang me about an hour before the programme was due to begin. It was a bustle, but I got there." Sight-reading comes easily to Olive Olds and she is adept at improvising when need be. IMPROVISED

Some time ago a girl she was to accompany handed her the music and the item began in the crowded hall. To her dismay, Mrs Olds found a loose page was missing, but she knew the piece slightly, remembered it changed key, and played on. The singer remarked later that the accompaniment sounded slightly different, and was horrified and deeply grateful when she heard the story. Though an A.T.C.L., Mrs , Olds seldom plays solos in her | programmes. “I don’t consider myself a concert pianist,” she said. As a small child she played duets. Once at a church function she had to be lifted on to a high chair, specially brought in for her. After the number no one remembered to lift her down again and she had to fall off as best she could without hurting herself.

Servicemen from all over New Zealand who spent thenleave at the Welcome Club will remember the sing-songs and solo items arranged by Mrs Olds. Country residents remember gratefully her concert parties which cheered up dreary times. For many years she taught pianoforte, before and after her marriage to Mr W. E. Olds. Their four children are not particularly musical, though they all learnt to play.

Their excuse is that they could never get to the piano to practise because their mother was always using it.