MUSICAL ENTERPRISE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 92, 19 April 1930, Page 6

MUSICAL ENTERPRISE

CO-OPERATION NEEDED (To the Editor.) Shy—Wellington is fortunate at the preisent time in having a very great amount of musical enterprise, both professional and amateur, in the shape of choral, orchestral, and chamber music societies. This is all to the good: but everybody must be alive to the fact that the crucial question in all this activity is the extent to which the public can keep on putting its hand into its pocket in order to support bo many ■ excellent performances and worthy causes. It seems to me that unless some of these societies are to enjoy but a meteoric career, or unless all are (to put it bluntly) to cut one another's throats with the inevitable series of deplorable consequences, it will be essential for them to draw together and organise on some kind of co-operative basis. There are two main respects in which co-operation would seem to be desirable. The first is as regards the dates of their respective functions, so that they may be more or less evenly distributed throughout the season; and in some cases cooperation in sharing orchestral players and soloists might be facilitated by this means and by arrangement of rehearsal dates. The second, which is even more vital, is that of securing some financial basis for their common undertakings in relation to the subscribing public; I admit that this is a very difficult question, but it seems as though it will have to be faced if everybody is to benefit. The number of subscribers needed to support those large societies which can only be heard to advantage in the Town Hall is, of course, greater than that needed for Concert Chamber performances; fewer still can be accommodated at- studio concerts. _But could not the societies amalgamate' on some such plan as the following: (a) A Town Hall Concerts Society, with one subscription list; (b) A small Hall Concerts Society, with another; (c) 'A Studio Concerts Society with a third; (d) A Cooperative Concert Society Council representing all three. The' extent of the activities of each /concert party could, be i-e----gulated by mutual agreement, and all proposed new enterprises could be submitted to the council before being launched. If some such system could be evolved, I think it would remove a lot' of hindrances to harmonious and 'successful musical progress in the city. Perhaps it is not too much to suggest that sooner or later dramatic and other artistic societies might join >in the scheme tinder a': Co-operative Council of Arts.—l am, etc., E. DOUGLAS TAYLER. Lower Hutt. .-.',-■