CECILIA CHOIR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27514, 7 October 1950, Page 8

CECILIA CHOIR

Success Over 25 Years TO BE DISBANDED Contributed The Cecilia Choir, conducted by Miss Meda Paine, will celebrate 25 years of choral singing and 14 years of broadcast performances this year. It was in 1925 that Miss Paine first began to train the choir of women’s voices which was later to become the Cecilia Choir. When its conductor retires at the end of the year the choir will disband. Since its first success in gaining first place in a choir contest at the Dunedin Competitions, the choir has given about 23 public concert recitals, appearing in Burns Hall, Begg’s Concert Chamber, the RSA Hall, and latterly the Town Hall Concert Chamber. In these performances the choir has presented to Dunedin audiences many impressive part songs. The composers represented were the older classic masters such as Gluck, Handel, Schubert, Shumann, Brahms, and many modern British composers. Two of Vaughan Williams’s compositions for women’s voices are particularly worthy of mention, “ Where is the Home for Me? ’’ and “ Sound Sleep.” Folk songs of England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, Czechoslovakia, and other countries are among the choir’s 200 part songs.

Concerts- of works by Dunedin composers were included in the choir’s past activities, and in the programme of the complimentary concert for Miss Paine on her departure for England in 1930 is mentioned the cantata “The Siege of Alhambra,” by Bawden. Longer works include Pergolesi’s “ Stabat Mater ” and Armstrong Gibbs’s “The New Jerusalem,” both of which were performed by the choir for the first time in New Zealand.

The choir has taken part in many civic functions, performing at the 1945 victory concert and at the Otago early settlers’ centennial celebrations in 1948. During the war the choir gave about £l5O for patriotic purposes, and also sent food parcels to a similar organisation, the Bath Ladies’ Choir. Past pianists have been Misses J. Milligan, M. Cotter, M. Macadam, J. Jones, and Mrs W. Scott, and Miss Paine has been the conductor for 25 years. It will be a loss to the city when the choir disbands, as Miss Paine’s insistence on a high standard of singing has resulted in performances which have been praised by critics over the years during which the,choir has been giving recitals. The choir’s fine interpretations, sensitivity to the conductor’s directions, phrasing, attack, and memory work have all been singled out for praise. Miss Paine, when she retires from the conductorship, will have the satisfaction of knowing that it was entirely her own energy and enthusiasm which formed the choir into a well-balanced, artistic group of singers which has given delight to hundreds of listeners during the last 25 years.