CIVICS CONCERT

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32633, 15 June 1971, Page 11

CIVICS CONCERT

Pop group to join A pop group is to join the Christchurch Civic Orchestra on Sunday afternoon for the first of the orchestra’s 1971 “pops concerts” in the Civic Theatre. The group, the Chapta, will play three numbers on its own, and will join the orchestra in several other numbers for which orchestral backing has been arranged by Dorothy Scott, a violinist in the orchestra. The "Sunday pops” concerts began in 1968 under the name "Music 68,” with Leonard Bernstein as patron, and similar series have been held each year since. Sunday’s programme is designed to appeal to a wide audience, and to show oif the j orchestra in bright, colourful music. The programme will open wiJi Berlioz’s “Roman Carnival” Overture one of the most popular of concert openers. After the bracket by the Chapta the orchestra will play Rossini's ballet music, “The Magic Toyshop,” orchestrated by Respighi. The story, of toys which come alive one night and act out their drama in the shop, is well known.

The rest of the programme contains the bracket in which the orchestra is joined by the Chapta, Tchaikovsky’s ballet music, “Swan Lake,” and a Divertimento by Jacques Ibert. The Divertimento is new to Christchurch audiences, and is a colourful work, containing parodies of several common musical forms.