The living arts

Press, 31 March 1981, Page 20

The living arts

Songs in detail One of the most detailed programmes produced by- the Music Federation will be available to members of the audience at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament on April 8 for the Christchurch performance of the British vocal group, the Songmakers’ Almanac. The 16-page programme will be invaluable to all those attending the concert, because it will record the minute details of the performance. Most Music Federation programmes include information about the compositions to be played, but seldom exceed eight pages. Extra detail will be included in the Songmakers’ Almanac programme because. according to the group’s founder, leader, and pianist, Graham Johnson, "we want to remove the mystique which surrounds the classical song repertoire.”

He says: "We give our audiences full texts and translations of the songs we "I are going to sing — without that, how can we expect the songs to make any impressions? “If we can give them the texts and imply a thread of continuity through the evening, then the audiences will travel with us through a sort -of mental process. "If they did not have the texts the audiences would tend to sit back, admire the dresses or the hall and listen to the singing, as against listening to the words, which is what they will do if they follow the texts.” The number of performers in the group varies. On its New Zealand tour four singers as well as Graham Johnson. Each of the singers — a soprano, Eidwenn Harrhy; a mezzo soprano, Linda Finnie; a tenor, Alexander Oliver; and a baritone, Peter Savidge — has been a soloist in opera in Britain and Europe. The present tour of Australia and New Zealand is the group's first outside Britain, where it has been in frequent demand for festivals and performances in concert halls since its inaugural performance at the South Bank Summer Music Series in 1976. The Songmakers’ Almanac describes itself -as "a song anthology come to life, a flexible singing repertory group which aims to celebrate anniversaries, outstanding events, and special subjects in unusual and vital programmes, which will depart from the long-estab-lished format.’’ The Christchurch programme will be in five parts, with an epilogue, entitled "The Lure of The East.” The songs will be by Schumann, ■ Bizet, other German and French composers, and several English composers,. including Noel Coward. Jail visions Mike. Walker, a Levinbased film director, has completed a 50-minute drama, “Kingi’s Story,” about a . Maori teen-ager who, while in prison, reflects on- the influences in his life. It is based on the experiences of a •group of teen-agers who became wards of the State. ■.- The New Zealand filmmaker and kinetic artist, Len Lye, who died in New York •last year, has been accorded a rare honour by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The museum screened a memorial programme of 16 of Lye’s films, the first made by working directly on the film. Two New Zealand writers. Jonathan Hardv and David

Stevens, have been nominated for the best-writer Academy Award in recognition of their script for the Australian feature film, “Breaker Morant.” Hardy, now artistic director of the Mercury Theatre, Auckland, .wrote the script while Stevens and he were living in Melbourne. Jack Thompson won the Cannes Award for best supporting actor last year for his role in this film, and is now starring as Stan Graham in the film, "Bad Blood,” being made on the West Coast.

Youth choir Canterbury members of the National Youth Choir will gather in Christchurch at the week-end for regional rehearsals under the choir's musical director, Guy Jansen, of Wellington. The singers will meet at the home of one of the members of the choir on Friday, and on Saturday they will have two sessions, morning and afternoon, at the Christchurch Teachers College. The choir, which has 100

members from many parts of the country, is planning a trip to Britain and Europe next year. Its plans for this year include two concerts in Auckland and one in Hamilton, and in May all members .of the choir will meet for a week of rehearsals for these events. No South Island performances are planned for ..this year, but the choir hopes to- 'give a concert in before leaving for Britain about the middle of next year.

Sales taxes on the recording industry and on filmmakers’s film stocks would be repealed or substantially reduced.

The league supports moves to establish a minimum New Zealand content in radio and television broadcasting, to encourage public demand for "home-grown” entertainers. Mr Clover said Social Credit would tackle the problems of neglect and frustration, especially in conservation, crafts, and the entertainment industry, which had caused about 1500 artists, writers, and creative workers to flee their homeland in the last three years, and which had diminished the valuable export-earning potential of the arts. Social Credit rejected the view that locally-made pop records were not culture worthy of promotion. ‘"All music, especially classical music, is a part of our heritage and should be exempt from sales taxes, as are books, paintings and sculpture.’’ Mr Clover said.

Early birds wanted The Christchurch Symphony Orchestra is advising its patrons to book their seats as soon as possible for the subscription concert to be conducted by Georg Tintner in the Town Hall on Saturday night. The orchestra does not want a repetition of the lastminute rush for seats at the door that delayed the start of -.Tintner’s first concert with the CSO last year — and it also wants to avoid the necessity to turn away disappointed concert-goers on the night. As- the number of subscribers has increased by 60 per cent this year, says the orchestra’s manager, Chris Brodrick, booking will have to be done early if good seats are wanted. Tintner’s programme features Beethoven's Symphony No. 3, the “Eroica,” as the main event, with a supporting cast of music for strings by Vaughan Williams, Sibelius, and Elgar. This will be the only concert conducted by Tintner for the CSO this year; the other two concerts planned in the series will be under the baton of the regular conductor, Peter Zwartz, and the formerly Christchurchbased conductor. Vanco Cavdarski, who is to become musical director of the Belgrade Philharmonic next year. Tintner has conducted regularly in New Zealand, and last month he was appointed artistic adviser to the Auckland Regional Orchestra. He is based in Brisbane, where he conducts the Queensland Theatre Orchestra. Socred and arts Financial support for the arts and big cuts in taxes on craft work are promised by Social Credit in the league's policy on the arts, announced in Hamilton by a spokesman, Mr Gary Clover. The main points of the policy announced by Mr Clover are: Government funding for

the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council and other institutions would be set as a proportion of the gross domestic product and the inflation rate, reviewed trienniallv.

A new Ministry of Recreation. Culture and the Arts would be instituted to coordinate Government administration of major cultural institutions, to facilitate arts planning and promotion, and to grant the arts direct ministerial access, in the same way as has been granted to sport and recreation interests.

Priority would be given programmes to preserve, store, and collect endangered Maori artefacts, archives, and manuscripts, paintings and films, as recommended 'in the Stolow and Smith reports now before the Government. Conservation units would be established at the Whakarewarewa Institute of Maori Carving and the four main metropolitan art galleries or museums. Friday arts A concert by members of. the Banks Peninsula Folk Club on Friday night will inaugurate a new policy of "First Friday Arts Presentations” at the Christchurch Arts Centre. The policy, sponsored by the Christchurch Arts Centre Association, is aimed at plumbing "an untapped wealth of talent” in Christchurch. The association hopes to create a relaxed atmosphere in which a variety of performers and audiences will be brought together. Performances planned for the series embrace music, drama, poetry, literary readings, mime, dance, and craft displays and demonstrations. 'Performers will receive 50 per cent of the door takings. Initially, the performances will be given in either the Downstairs Common Room (where the folk concert will be held on Friday), or the Centre Gallery. Later, they will have a permanent home in a former lecture room in the clocktower block. But first the lecture room must be brought up to earthquake.protection standards and renovated. The work has started, and eventually there will be a small auditorium and stage. Kitchen facilities will be provided, too, for groups which want to make the Friday performances social' events as well as artistic ones. Jazz clinic

A surge of interest among . young jazz musicians in bigband music has prompted Canterbury members of the New Zealand Jazz Foundation to plan a one-day stageband clinic, which will be held at the Burnside High i School on April 12. Stuart Martin, music teacher at Darfield High School and leader of a jazz band there, has organised theclinic. The tutors will be a visiting American trumpeter, j Bobby Shew, who is described as "one of the top brass and big-band clinicians;” Colin Hemingsen. a leading New Zealand saxo- ’ phonist and president of the foundation; and Roger Fox ; and other membersof his ’band, who played at the Montreux Jazz Festival last year.The clinic will comprise instrumental master-classes, a lecture by Bobby Shew, instruction in improvisation, and band rehearsals. In the evening, after the clinic has ended, the Roger Fox Big Band will give a concert in the Theatre Royal.