SANG TO SCHOOLGIRLS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22444, 13 June 1936, Page 14

SANG TO SCHOOLGIRLS

VISIT OF NOTED TENOR AN IMPROMPTU ITEM Although ho is not due to begin his concert tour of the Dominion for some time, Mr. Richard Crooks, one of America's principal concert and radio singers, and leading tenor of the NewYork Metropolitan Opera, gave his first performance in Auckland yesterday. The programme was short —it consisted of only one song —and the members of the privileged audience were nearly 200 pupils of the Auckland Girls' Grammar School. Mr. Crooks, who spent the day in the city, and left for Sydney by the Mariposa last night, called on the Mayor, Mr. Ernest Davis, who showed him the Town Hall. Mr. Crooks tested the acoustics of tho building with a few notes, and his accompanist, Mr. F. W Sehamvecker, tried a piano. Then tho party walked into the concert chamber, where tho Grammar School girls were rehearsing a play for their concert next week. Mr. Crooks was an interested spectator of the rehearsal, ami, after it was over, tho Mayor told tho girls the name of tho' distinguished visitor. There was an immediate request for a song, and Mr. Crooks willingly acceded to it, singing "Because" to the accompaniment of Mr. Schauwecker. Before leaving the concert chamber, lie had to sign his name dozens of times in exercise books, and on pieces of paper handed to him by excited girls.