AN ENGLISH TEACHER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 416, 26 July 1928, Page 16

AN ENGLISH TEACHER

MR. STANLEY HOLLIDAY’S EXPERIENCES PUPIL OF SANTLEY’S To have studied for several years under the famous Sir Charles Santley, and to have sung at the principal London concerts with singers of the calibre of Madame Clara Butt, Madame Kirby Lunn, Phyllis Lett, Ben Davies, Peter Dawson, and Robert Radford, is the experience of Mr. Stanley Holliday, who is now living in Auckland. It is unfortunate that war disabilities forced him to retire from the concert platform, and also from teach-

ing the art to which he was devoted so much, and seek health and strength overseas, but such has been the lot of many European artists since the match was applied to the powder magazine of Europe in August, 1914. Convinced that a thorough knowledge of the throat was essential for a teacher of singing, Mr. Holliday, while preparing himself to enter the teaching profession, studied for a while as a medical student. This is a knowledge which Mr. Holliday considers should be possessed by all teachers before they commenced to train such a delicate organ as the human voice. While teaching in London he was associated with the great Madame Albani, and prior to joining the army, with the Royal College of Music. Although now greatly recovered in health Mr. Holliday’s disabilities have compelled him to give up singing, and apart from exercising the art for his own personal pleasure he unfortunately makes no public appearances.

Writing to a friend in Auckland a New Zealander at present on a visit to Sydney states that Shura Cherkassky, the 16-year-old pianist, has proved the real thing in prodigies, and is drawing crowded houses. “No allowance has to be made for his age,” he states. “He is better tban many of the prominent pianists of the present age will ever be.”