The living arts

Press, 17 July 1979, Page 29

The living arts

Expatriate's art

A New Zealand-born artist who has been in North America since 1962, studying and working, and has lived and worked in the art metropolis, New York, since 1972, is having a one-man exhibition this month in the Brooke/Gifford Gallery. He is Max Gimblett, who is spending a short time back in his homeland as visiting artist at the University of Canterbury. His work is familiar to gallery-goers in the far north, because he has sent home work regularly for exhibition at the Barry Lett Galleries, Auckland, in the last few years, and some of it has been shown in Hamilton and New Plymouth, but this is his first show in the South Island. Max Gimblett was born in Auckland in 1935, and left in 1962 for Toronto, where he worked as a potter until 1964. In 1865 and 1966 he studied painting at the San Francisco Art Institute.

As well as his exhibitions in his homeland, he has had one-man shows and taken part in group shows in a variety of centres in the United States, from Texas to New Yorl, and his works are held in a number of public and private collections. The exhibition at the Brooke/Gifford Gallery features prints, ink drawings, paintings, and other works on paper, all or nearly all done in the last year. Gallery tours

The Robert McDougall Art Gallery this month will begin a guided tour service. Volunteer guides are being recruited, and will be available to conduct tours of the gallery, initially each Sunday afternoon at 2.30 p.m. The tours will be planned to give a general view of the gallery and its changing exhibitions, and will take between 30 and 45 minutes. The gallery is owned and funded by the Chrischurch City Council and there is no fee for entry’ to the gallery, nor for the tour. But donations will be appreciated. The tour timetable will be extended as more guides become available, and soon it should be possible to offer tours on Saturdays and Wednesdays as well as Sundays. Organ recital A widely-praised — and widely heard — American organist, William Taegue. will give a recital in the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament on July 25 during a short visit to New Zealand. The recital, which will include works by modern American composers as well as works from the more traditional repertoire; is sponsored by the Christchurch Organists Association.

William Teague, born in Gainesville, Texas, played his first piano recital at the age of nine and his first organ recital at the age of 12. Also at the age of 12 he received his first

appointment as a church organist, and he has held a church position without interruption ever since. Since 1948 William Teague has been the organist and choirmaster for Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church and -a professor of music at Centenary College, both in Shreveport, Louisiana. During his tenure at St Mark’s the new famous Aeolian-Skinner organ was installed under his direction. At St Mark’s he directs the activities of a large music department, which in addition to the regular services presents an internationally known series of concerts known as the “Great Masterpiece Series.” William Teague has given concerts throughout the United States, and in England, Europe, and Mexico. This year he will play in Hawaii, Japan, and Australia as well as New Zealand. He has made several recordings. Three concerts The Jubilate Singers will present the second of their three concerts for 1979 in St Alban’s Methodist Church, Meri-. vale, on Sunday afternoon. The choir was formed in 1977 by Martin Setchell, and the present membership is 18 singers. Normally, the choir presents two concerts each year, but because of increasing public support, there will be an extra concert this year. This will take the form of a varied and mostly unaccompanied programme of choral w’orks covering a wide range of styles. Bach’s motet “Lobet den Herrn’ s will be followed by excepts from Monteverdi’s secular part-song collec-

tion called “Scherzi Musical!.”

Two twentieth-century choral works make up the rest of the recital; both works are firmly established in' the choral repertory. The first will be the “Choral Dances” from Britten’s opera “Gloriana,” in which the tenor solist will be Franz Kney. The second work will be Aaron Copland’s setting of the Creation story’, “In the Beginning.” The solo part will be sung by Judy Bellingham.

The conductor will be David Vine, who is directing the choir during 1979.

Aewr Music Chloe Moon, a Christchurch composer on the staff of the School of Music at Canterbury University, will take part in the first performance of her own composition, “Episodes,” when the University Chamber Orchestra premieres the work at its concert next Monday evening in the Christchurch Teachers’ College auditorium. Miss Moon, normally leads the orchestra, but on this occasion, Marta Hidy, of the McMaster Quartet, will occupy the leader’s chair. “Episodes” is an extended three-movement composition. It was intended as a training piece, but is proving to be a durable essay ’ exploiting widely the resource of the string orchestra. It is not Chloe Moon’s first work for the medium; the same orchestra gave the first performance of a composition by her when she was a student in the honours course. Although their responsibilities are principally those of acting as coaches

to the orchestra, all four members of the McMaster quartet have volunteered to play in the concert. In the baroque part of the programme they will be soloists: Mark Childs in Telemann’s Viola Concerto and Marta Hidy, Sasha Weinstangei and Zdenek in the first of Handel’s great set of string concerti grassi. The programme also includes a symphony by Sammartini, the eighteenth century Milanese organist. John Ritchie will conduct the concert. Court Grant

The Court Theatre will receive an annual grant from the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council of $lOO,OOO for 1979-80. This represents an increase of 31 x 5 per cent over the funding in the last financial year, and should enable the company to avoid cuts in its major activities.

While the new funding level will fall somewhat short of the requested level, the Christchurch Theatre Trust, the Court’s governing body, feels that it is a realistic response to the growth of the Court Theatre. The trust feels that the increase demonstrates the arts council’s awareness of the Court Theatre’s increasing role in the cultural life of Christchurch. But the arts council has been unable to allocate funds to subsidise the cost of regional touring, and this will, temporarily at least, curtail the theatre’s commitments to the largest regional community area in New Zealand. The Court hopes that funding will be available jn the next eranting neriod.