MUSICIANS ASSISTED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22742, 30 November 1935, Page 24

MUSICIANS ASSISTED

ORCHESTRA FOR REGENT THEATRE As au outcome of negotiations between the J. C. Williamson Picture Corporation and the Unemployment Board, the Regent Theatre will reintroduce an orchestra of 14 players at its evening sessions commencing to-night. ■ The..Unemployment Boards new plan has as its object the placing of as many unemployed musicians as possiule back into their own positions. The t board has decided to subsidise the wages of theatre orchestra players, and to take them from i the ranks of ordinary relief workers in which many have taken their places since the disbanding of theatre orchestras following the advent* of the talkies, this laudable gesture on the part of the board might have man beneficial results, including, if successful, the employment of practically all musicians throughout New Zealand, and giving a fresh impetus to music, which supplies such an important and cultural need in the lives of the average person. It will also be of benefit to the teachers, whose services will, be required to train new musicians, while the commercial music houses will- find their profit in the. increased sales of lB ‘ struments and music thus demanded. Many of those musicians who played in the theatres in the days of the silent films had filled a means of supplementing their incomes, and when they were later deprived of the opportunity of earning that extra, they were not really unemployed. Many are still in employment at other work, and thus thv do not come within the scope of the new proposal. Others again were dependent solely on what they received for their theatre playing as their means of livelihood. These are the musicians who are being taken from the usual avenues of relief work, and placed on a Government subsidised wage at their own employment. . , . ~ The new plan is to be developed in ail the main cities in the Dominion. The Regent Orchestra will be under the conductorship of M. de'Rose, who is.well known to Dunedin music lovers as the head of the local Symphony Orchestra, and will consist of the following inetruments: —Four violins, one viola, one cello, one string bass, one flute, one clarinet, two B flat trumpets, one B flat tenor trombone, and the percussion.. The orchestra will be heard nightly in a short programme of music from 7.40 until the commencement of the picture programme at 8 o'clock, and will again appear to play the entr’acte.