Stanley Black back in proms

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33433, 15 January 1974, Page 5

Stanley Black back in proms

Four concerts have been allocated to Christchurch in the N.Z.B.C. Symphony Orchestra’s 1974 proms series of 26 concerts under Stanley Black. The scheduled dates in the Town Hall are February 7,8, 9, and 10.

Mr Black arrived in Wellington on Sunday to begin rehearsals. His first concert in the 1974 Proms will be in Wellington on Saturday. For the proms Stanley Black has arranged the programmes in four broad categories: music of the world, music of the movies, a Tchaikovsky prom, and an early evening prom. Mr Black, who drew big audiences when he last conducted here in 1972, has retained the successful formula for these concerts: the spectacular, the fanciful, the familiar, and the rhythmical. He will present such surefire favourites as the Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture, Cinderella by Prokofiev, film themes from “Lawrence of Arabia”, “Love Story”, and “Space Odyssey: 2001”, and his own arrangements of Latin-American tunes.

In the early evening prom on February 8 the featured work will be Dohnanyi’s Variations On a Nursery Tune, with the young Auckland pianist, Sheryl Clarke, as soloist. Other resident artists who will appear are the Dunedin soprano, Irene Tirbutt, the trumpeter, Michael Gibbs, and the actor, Ray Henwood,

who will be narrator with the Royal Christchurch Musical Society in Walton’s Henry V Suite. Stanley Black will also conduct from the piano when he plays tunes from films.

Irene Tirbutt, winner of several opera, lieder, and oratorio awards, including the 1969 Melba Aria, has given concerts in Australia, both as recitalist and with leading orchestras. Late last year she was a member of the New South Wales Opera which toured England. Her item in the February 9 Tchaikovsky prom will be the aria, ’“Farewell, Ye Woods”, from the “Maid of Orleans”.

Sheryl Clarke’s successes in competitions in Auckland and other centres, have already led to two appearances with the Auckland Junior Symphony. Michael Gibbs, a member of both the N.Z.B.C. Symphony and the New Zealand Jazz Orchestra, recently returned from refresher study in the United States and England. He will be soloist in the Broadway show tune, “People”. Ray Henwood is a regular lead in Wellington Downstage Theatre productions and radio plays, and is widely recognised as the television advocate for a brand of confectionery.