Festival Did Not Quite Put N.Z. “On The Map”

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30880, 13 October 1965, Page 6

Festival Did Not Quite Put N.Z. “On The Map”

Disappointment at the lack of publicity given to New Zealand during the Commonwealth Arts Festival was expressed by Mr William Hawkey, conductor of the Christchurch Harmonic Society, before the choir left London for New York.

Mr Hawkey emphasised that he was speaking not about publicity for the choir, but for the Dominion. He had hoped that the Arts Festival would have been an opportunity for New Zealand to have been “put on the map” in Britain as a country of culture as well as a sporting country or a country renowned for its primary products. In spite of the success of the choir’s tour, he did not feel that enough publicity had been given to the country during the festival. “You can’t blame New Zealand House. Publicity is really the responsibility of the promoters,” said Mr Hawkey. Perhaps it was unfortunate that the Christchurch Harmonic Society did not have a New Zealand identification in its title. When Sir Malcolm Sargent introduced the choir to the 8.8. C. Choral Society at a rehearsal in the Maida Vale studios of the 8.8. C., some of the English blandly said: “Oh from New Zealand! We thought you were a choir from Christchurch, Hampshire.” Audiences No Bigger

Some of the festival contributions from African or Caribbean countries created much more publicity in Britain, although they did not attract greater audiences, said Mr Hawkey. “Of course you can see reasons why the British Press say, were not so interested in the New Zealand contribution, because we were bringing across an art already an integral part of British life and culture—whereas the African countries were displaying Embarrassing Moment The most embarrasing moment during the Christchurch Harmonic Society choir's tour of Britain for the Commonwealth Arts Festival is said to be that experienced by one of the women singers on a train travelling between Glasgow and Liverpool. She .walked through the train to a toilet in another carriage and came out to find that the carriage hed been shunted away from the rest of the train. "Fortunately, a railway guard helped her join the train proper. Plenty Of Souvenirs When the Christchurch Harmonic Society choir returns to New Zealand it will return with such assorted souvenirs and purchases as English hunting horns, Indian bamboo flutes, Tyrrolean hats, records, television sets, stereophonic equipment, clothing and shoes and cameras. In the last week in Britain, there were three days clear of concerts for most of the choir and about 20 of them took the opportunity Jo cross the channel to Paris. Two Dutch New Zealanders made a quick visit to their native country.

their own indigenous culture. . . .’’ Some comments heard by the choir included disappointment that the singers “did not look different” from British people. “In normal circumstances I would have thought that the fact the choir had come' so far, and its own great efforts to get here would have merited more attention both on it and our cultural standards,” said Mr Hawkey. Once the controversy on the possible appearance of the bare-breasted dancers from Sierra Leone in Trafalgar square at lunch-time developed, the festival organisers or the various news media focused all their publicity efforts on this incident and forgot about other events. Major Weaknesses

“There were two weaknesses of the festival which I think stood out.” said Mr Hawkey. “The festival organisation people in each centre were terribly overworked. They needed more money and more assisting staff. They did a magnificent job but unfortunately there were many little things not attended to because of the lack of staff. Problems which the choir particularly encountered, such as the bad planning of bus transport from Cardiff after a concert, which resulted in arrival in London at 5 o’clock in the morning of their recital at Westminister Abbey, were “insignificant” in the overall context of the tour, however. The second weakness noted by Mr Hawkey was the lack of opportunity for festival performers to get together and meet each other. “I did not see anything of the dancers and other festival events. There just wasn’t time. The only part of the Australian contribution I saw was the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the opening concert. We saw some other choirs but there was a need for people of dissimilar interests to get together in order to understand each other’s culture.” Time Too Limited Mr Hawkey said he would have dearly liked to have attended some of the discussions at the musical conference in Liverpool during the festival but time was too limited for people involved in performances to attend these sessions. He said he thought there should be a few free days in

the middle of the festival with no concerts and the opportunity for all the various contributors to get together in some open forum, or socially, or even formally, perhaps, to listen to lectures on each other’s culture.

Some of the British papers had spoken about the interchange of ideas between the Commonwealth artists, but this was not true as far as the choir could judge.