COMPETITIONS FESTIVAL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19721, 22 August 1927, Page 8

COMPETITIONS FESTIVAL

The annual festival of the Auckland Competitions Society opens today with a list of entries promising well for its success. It was for years a reproach to Auckland that it had no festival of the kind, though other towns much smaller in size managed to conduct them with good success. The efforts of earlier years had been allowed to languish, and there had been no revival. The reproach has now been removed. Judging by the response of entrants, the festival should now be on a permanent basis. It is a cause deserving encouragement, for the cultural value of competitions, properly managed, can be very high. Everybody is not convinced they do all that is claimed for them, but if they do 1 only a part of it they justify their existence. Fostering the arts of music and speech—and these cover the, main sections of the competitions —is a work worth doing. Nobody seriously questions the value of music, and it is well to find many wishing to excel in it, when the perfection of mechanical reproduction is said to be discouraging the learning of music purely for its recreational and cultural value. It is just as important that the standard of spoken English should be raised if possible, and the elocutionary section should be of value in that way. It is true, as is sometimes said in criticism, that these contests reveal much mediocrity a # s well as a certain measure of real ability or promise. It is no criticism, for their purpose is to sift the performers, to single out those with talent, and encourage them to go still further. All told, though there may be groimd for criticism, it is generally recognised that the competitions movement has a distinct social value, and there will be many well-wishers for the success of this year's event in Auckland.