HUTT VALLEY CONCERT

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 40, 15 August 1940, Page 9

HUTT VALLEY CONCERT

When the general public think of technical education they are apt to regard it in terms of lathes, saw benches, sewing machines, and typewriters, but to show that modern education has a cultural background, the Hutt Valley Memorial Technical College last evening provided, in . the King George Theatre, Lower Hutt, a musical ahd dramatic performance of a very high order.

The theatre was. filled. Apart from several college teachers, who assisted the orchestra, the - programme was given by pupils. The performance reflected the greatest credit on the staff, and especially on Mr. R. McLay, who, in less than two years, has trained an orchestra of sixty—the second larg-

est school orchestra in the Dominion. Few'of these players have been learning music for more than a year, and some twenty have had only four months' experience, yet the orchestra's playing of the march "Salute," the overture "Columbia," the waltz "Summer Days," and the march "Bunny Parade" left little to be desired.

The singing by the massed choirs of Chapman's "Let All the World in Every Corner Sing" and Galway's "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" was a real musical treat. The latter piece was to a setting by Dr. V. E. Galway, Professor of Music at Otago University. There were two ballets in direct contrast, the first a character dance, and the second in the operatic style to the accompaniment of Johann Strauss's waltz "Tales From the Vienna Woods." Drill items by boys and girls, with a musical background, were greatly appreciated. The junior girls' choir was heard to advantage in partsongs, by Charles Woods, "I Have Twelve Oxen" and "Who is Sylvia?" Simple but effective arrangements of well-known hymns were given by the combined brass bands.

There was a comedy thriller, a oneact play, in which Masters T. Aldridge, J. Elvines, F. Beban, K. Russell, L. Domney, and R. Blandford caused much amusement. Other humorous items were "Radio Personalities" (Masters Burrows and Burnley); a boys' ballet, and the dialogue in "The Peasant Cantata," the players being A. Benson, J. Neilson, K. Loughlin, K. Thorn, J. Parr, E. Burrows, D. Guiney, R. Chapman-Taylor,* and B. Yates. "The Peasant Cantata," which occupied the second part of the programme, was composed by John Sebastian Bach. This was a most charming item. The choruses were "Good Neighbours All," "Fifty Florins Seems a , Lot," "If Fortune Had Made Me Master," "Spring Comes Laughing," "Hey Derry Down Derry," "Good Fellows Be Merry," and "Now Let Us to the Bagpipes Sound." The choruses were connected up with an original farce.

The concert will be repeated tonight.