The beginnings and development of a New Zealand music: The life ...

107
An article in the New Zealand Listener of December 1949 publicly
stated the aims of the New Zealand section as being:
II the performance of new music and its
theoretical explanation - and it makes its
approach on two fronts, national and
international. The latter is served by
international festivals and by the interchange
of information between sections. In the
field of national music the plan is to
discover and foster the talent of young
composers, especially those who are struggling
to find individual expression, and to make
sure that the public is accurately informed
about the chief trends in contemporary music
in general. "32
The article continued on to explain that composers may send manuscripts
for reading by the committee, and that the committee may, if it sees fit,
forward the manuscripts for trial by an international jury. An
acceptance by the international jury of a manuscript would result in a
performance at the annual international f~stival.
The article also
stated that the intention of the New Zealand Section was to include at
least one New Zealand work in everyone of its programmes.
The New Zealand Section 33 of the International Society for
Contemporary Music began its activities in Wellington quietly. It
arranged one concert a year for the first seven years of its existence,
attracting audiences of fifty to sixty people f.or each concert. 34
"We met difficulties from the start; one
or two composers, and performers, horned in,
resolute to push their wares, unaware of what
the I.S.C.M. was about; one or two showed
a bland interest for a short time and vanished;
the affilitation fee to the parent society,
instead of being a nominal two or three guineas,
turned out· to be £40. Wellington newspapers
have virtually ignored our concerts. But we
survived."35·
The chief value of the ISCM for the New Zealand composer lay in
the fact that it gave an opportunity to listen to new works from overseas,
and provided a focal point for contemporary music in New Zealand.
In
32 Music of today. New Zealand Listener vol.21 no.545, 2 December
1949: 12-13.
33 The ISCM affilitates only one centre per country. When a society was
also formed in Auckland in 1961, the two societies formed themselves
into a federation comprising the Wellington Society for Contemporary
Music and the Auckland Society for Contemporary Music.
34 Two concerts were actually held in 1950 (Frederick Page, Contemporary
music in New Zealand. Landfall vol. 10 no.2, June 1956: 148.) .
35 ibid.