MUSIC NOTES.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1473, 18 July 1918, Page 27

MUSIC NOTES.

(By

“G” String.)

It is reported that Mr. Edward Branscombe, who sang in New Zealand with the Westminster Glee Singers some years ago, is joining the teaching staff of the Sydney Conservatorium. Mr. Branscombe’s singing of “The Lowland Sea,” with a charming tenor voice, is a pleasant memory of that tour. It might also be mentioned that Mr. Branscombe was the first to introduce the concert comedy company to the Dominion, and they were the original Scarlet Troubadours. The Wellington Choral Union has decided to give a performance of “Elijah” in the Town Hall on August 14 as a complimentary benefit to Mr. Robert Parker, the well - known conductor, who is retiring from the arena of music as a conductor of public performances. As a tribute to Mr. Parker’s long and honourable association with music in Wellington the net proceeds will be handed to him. Mr. John Prouse will once more sing his masterpiece and Miss Mina Caldow will sing the contralto music free of charge. The musical world has sustained a great loss in the death of M. Wasili Safonoff, at the age of 66. M. Safonoff was a Russian, and visited England for his first time about seven years ago. At one time director of the Moscow Conservatoire, he achieved fame as a pianist and teacher, although the general public in England and on the Continent knows him best as the man who conducted without a baton.

It is not generally known that Miss Elsie Rosslyn, the cultured soprano of the English Pierrots, at present touring New Zealand, is a daughter "of Mr. T. Jones, the city organist of Adelaide. Mr. John Lemmone, the eminent flautist, is Miss Rosslyn’s uncle.

Madame Elsie Davies, the soprano who sang in Wellington last year under engagement to the Wellington Choral Union and who has appeared in leading roles in Italy, made her first appearance in Sydney with the Royal Philharmonic Society on Thursday, July 4. This singer is the wife of the secretary to the Consul-Gen-eral of the Commonwealth for Italy, and only returned to Australia about two years ago. Madame Elsie Davies adopted the stage name of Italia de Medici because her husband’s mother was one of the historical family of Medici and an operatic artist also. Madame Davies has sung in London with Landon Ronald’s new Symphony Orchestra.

Estelle Aubrey and Mae Riche, two pretty and accomplished young American dancers appearing on the Fuller circuit, have played together in vaudeville for six years, resisting several invitations to join the “movie” forces. They have danced in every city in the U.S.A., and also given exhibitions in many of the Liberty theatres erected in the soldiers’ training camps.

An echo of “The Bing Boys” is heard in the following incident: Two airmen flew from Scotland to London. Their journey was made at the call of duty. The visit to the capital was of short duration, but they decided to have one last glimpse of a revue before returning to Scotland preparatory to their departure for the front. So they went to see “The Bing Boys” at the Alhambra. Their journey had occupied a little under four hours, and they were only just in time for the night performance. They landed at an aerodrome in the north of London and went down west. The only seats they could obtain were in the dress circle, but when the revue began they found that they were both still deafened by the roar of the engines, and they could not hear a souhd from the stage. They approached the manager and asked if they could be placed somewhere nearer. When he heard the circumstances he made it possible, and they sat the performance out to the end. An hour later two machines rose from the aerodrome in the north of London and sped off through the night to Glasgow.