A SINGING ORGANIST

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21529, 29 December 1931, Page 3

A SINGING ORGANIST

DUNEDIN ENGAGEMENT PICTURE THEATRE'S NEW ATTRACTION. The unceasing demand for new forms of entertainment has been productive of many changes in theatre music during the past few years, and now the people of Dunedin will have an opportunity of hearing for the first time in this city a singing organist, in the person of Mr Paul Cullen, a young man in the early twenties, who has been engaged to play at the Empire Theatre for a season. Mr Cullen, who claims to be the only singing organist in New Zealand, was born in Christchurch and educated in Mosgiel and Wellington. He received his early training at the organ under Mr Bernard Page, the Wellington city organist, and has played at the De Luxe Theatre in Wellington and at the Regent Theatre in Auckland. The success that has marked Mr Cullen’s appearances in the northern centres is ample proof of his accomplishments as an entertainer. Many people in New Zealand have listened with pleasure to his light baritone, and the fact that his numbers are mostly the lighter variety of popular songs, ballads, and foxtrots is merely a concession to modern tastes. Old-time melodies, however, are also included in his repertoire, and, indeed, Mr Cullen makes an effort to please every section of the community. He is a young man of quiet and unassuming personality, and creates a distinctly favourable impression in conversation. He has been in considerable demand in Wellington for Sunday night organ recitals and has also given a number of recitals in the North Island on such occasions as the official openings of cathedral organs, some of his numbers including Toccata and fugue in D minor (Bach) and sonatas by Mendelssohn. Mr Cullen sings into a microphone—a circumstance which has created a wrong conception in the minds of unobservant audiences, who conclude that the voice is merely recorded on a gramophone.