Music skills

Press, 15 May 1985, Page 22

Music skills

Secondary school students will brush up on their orchestral skills at a national orchestral course this week. The course has been held in Christchurch for the last 26 years and is sponsored by the Department of Education. For the first time this year an overseas conductor will tutor at the course. The course provides training in orchestral playing for the best instrumental players in New Zealand schools. The overseas tutor is Australian John Curro. The conductor of the Queensland Youth Orchestra since it was formed in 1966, Mr Curro lectures in viola and chamber music at the Queensland Copservatorium

and has recently been appointed as the principal guest conductor of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra. The course ends with a concert on Saturday evening in the auditorium at Christchurch Teachers’ College. The concert will feature the “Romeo and Juliet” overture by Tchaikovsky, “A Shropshire Lad” by Butterworth, “Adagietto” by Mahler, and Beethoven’s “Piano Concerto No. 5 in Eb”. The soloist for the concert is Tim Emerson, a seventh form pupil at Burnside High School. He will play the concerto. Ninety three young musicians are attending the course and there are 12 tutors.