Arts And Entertainment ORCHESTRA TO REAPPEAR

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32059, 6 August 1969, Page 8

Arts And Entertainment ORCHESTRA TO REAPPEAR

After several months of inactivity and the loss to Australia of its musical director, Dobbs Franks, the Christchurch Civic Orchestra is to reappear next week to begin a series of

subscription concerts with guest conductors.

Juan Matteucci, former conductor of the N.Z.B.C. Symphony Orchestra and now conductor of the Symphonia of Auckland, will conduct the first concert on August 14, and the third in November; and Alex Lindsay, the N.Z.B.C.’s orchestra’s leader, will conduct the middle concert in October.

Two young pianists will appear as guest soloists. The first concert will feature Michael Houstoun, the 16-year-old Timaru pianist who was third in the Civic Music Council’s last concerto contest. He will play Beethoven’s Plano Concerto No. 2. An Auckland music student, David James, will come south for the November concert. Mr James is a senior student at the Auckland University School of Music, and is already well known in Auckland as a solo recitalist He will perform

the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 in Christchurch.

The concerts have been planned to cater for a wide range of tastes, and the programmes include music by composers as diverse as Handel and Stravinsky.

The first concert will be an all-Beethoven affair, starting with the Prometheus Overture and continuing with the Piano Concerto No. 2 and the Eroica Symphony, all works which date from Beethoven’s socalled “second period.”

The second concert will comprise works by Handel, Ravel, Stravinsky and Haydn; and the third will feature Russian composers —Liadov's Eight Russian Folk-songs, the Tchaikovsky concerto, and Prokofiev’s Seventh Symphony, three works covering the late romantic and postromantic periods in Russia. The concerts will be held in the Majestic Theatre.