MAORI MUSIC

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 688, 13 June 1929, Page 14

MAORI MUSIC

Concert By Native Boys And Girls A WORTHY OBJECT Thanks are due to Mr. Colin Muston for organising a Maori concert to be given in the Town Hall on June 29. The programme will consist of items by the pupils of St. Stephen’s Maori Boys’ College and the Queen Victoria School for Native Girls, and will comprise bakas, games, poi dances and songs. This is the result of a happy idea on the part of Mr. Muston, who became interested in the work of the twjo schools during the rehearsing of the Maori cantata “Hinemoa,” in which pupils from these schools took part. Their participation on that occasion proved one of the most popular features of the concert, and their next appearance will he waited with considerable interest. Special efforts are being made to give the Town Hall stage a setting ’ worthy of the occasion, and judging j by the extent of the preliminary work ! being put into the concert something 1 very much out of the usual run of con- ■ certs should result. The object of the entertainment—a most worthy one —is the establishment of a fund for the provision of pianos for the two schools. The Maori race ranks among the most musical in the world, and it will be a great pity if these young people are not provided with the equipment necessary for the development of what is to them a natural gift.

Spivakovsky The striking success o£ Jascha Spivakovsky’s present tour of Australia is evidence of a continued improvement in the musical taste of the public. From the outset the famous pianist has given programmes of quite unusual interest, adopting a policy of giving at least one modern work of importance at each concert. Among the most successful compositions thus heard for the first time in Australia is Moussorgsky’s remarkable suite, “Pictures from an Exhibition,” an impressionistic work depicting a crowd strolling through a picture gallery and pausing before several of the most striking of the paintings. The subjects treated include “Two Dwarfs,” “The Great Gate of Kieff,” “Two Jews Quarrelling,” “The Market-Place at Limoges,” “The Catacombs,” and a “Ballet of Unhatched Chickens.” Spivakovsky has been playing in Australia since March under the direction of Mr. D. D. O’Connor, and may visit New Zealand later in the year.