Music education group to meet

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33516, 23 April 1974, Page 10

Music education group to meet

The Society for Music Education, an organisation formed to promote various musical organisations, will hold its first general meeting for this year next Monday.

The meeting will be at Aldersgate, Durham Street, and the programme will •include a panel discussion by teachers, parents, and a child psychologist on the best age at which to start learning music; a demonstration of the teaching of music to very young children; and a recording of young violinists at the Suzuki School in Japan. Later this year the association plans to arrange more performances and demonstrations of teaching, discussions, lectures, meetings with prominent music educators, courses, and social functions. All music lovers will be welcome at its meetings, the association says. Since 1928, when music ■ teachers were first regis-

tered, there has been tremendous frowth of music in New Zealand, writes Mr B. R. Hansen, treasurer of the association, in a note about its aims. In 1960, the School Music Association was formed. This organisation has

achieved much for the cause of music in our schools. Now, in 1974, we find music being taught throughout the school system. There are thriving courses at the universities and teachers’ colleges. Much more emphasis is placed on music in play centres and kindergartens. Schools of instrumental music are flourishing — one only has to look at Robert Perks’s Christchurch scheme, in which more than 1000 young people meet on Saturdays to make music. I would refer also to the primary schools’ music festivals, which have taken place in the Christchurch Town Hall with more than 4000 children participating. Chamber music societies, brass bands, contemporary music societies, choirs, and orchestras are all contributing to the music education of our citizens. Until now, there has been little contact between all these bodies. A widely representative organisation, such as the Society for Music Education, will allow for more communication, and it will also provide a louder corporate voice to speak on behalf of all those engaged in music at local, national and international levels. The association is greatly encouraged by the support it has received since its inauguration late last year.