COMPETITION FESTIVALS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 284, 4 November 1925, Page 7

COMPETITION FESTIVALS.

(To the Editor.) Sir,- —Owing to the stand taken by the Wanganui Education Board against competition festivals, I would line to bring under the notice of your readers the very different attitude ol Education Boards in Great Britain. There are now over .170 well organised competition festivals held annually in the Motherland, and the number is being added to each year. The movement is declared to be doing “admirable work in widening the mental, artistic 'and social outlook of the people and promoting friendliness and co-operation between all classes of the community.” It has the enthusiastic support of the best musicians and music-lovers in the country. The presidents of iocal competition festivals include H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, H.R.H. Princess Louise, H.R.H. Princess Beatrice, the Archbishop of Canterbury and other notabilities. Last year at the Musical Competition Festival at Birmingham, 250 choirs, consisting of 10,000 children, competed. At Hull, 172 school choirs, representing 0880 children, competed; also 63 school folk dance teams, which included 640 children. County educational authorities 'and school teachers give the competition movement their warm support, one H.M. school inspector stating: “Wo can always tell any school which has competed at a festival by the way the children sing.” “Nowhere is any difficulty -experienced in getting the competitors leave to be absent from school; in somecases a substantial money grant is made by the local Education Board to help towards expenses.” For the past 35 years the London School Board has held its own competition festival in part and sight-singing by choirs from the schools under its jurisdiction, and 1 have in my possession copies of some of the sight singing test pieces submitted to the competing choirs, and usually rendered very creditably. I am -safe in saying that few, if any, school, church or choral society choirs in this Dominion could render these pieces at sight as is done by the London school choirs. Many other School Boards throughout Great Britain hold school competitions; in some districts there is a “school week” given up to competitions, exhibits, displays, meetings for parents, lectures, etc. Wake up! Wanganui Education Board, you’re slumbering while the world is moving on. Encourage and organise school choir and other competitions. Introduce such a system of music instruction into your schools that all normal children on reaching the sixth standard will be able to sing at sight any simple tune put before them with a fair degree of expression. It is done in other countries. Why not here?—l am, etc., A.E.C. Ileretaunga street, Nov. 3,1925.