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

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But I think too, that an occasion like this
makes it possible to discover some of our
assets, some of those unique advantages we
have in being New Zealanders."4
He summed up the main theme of his address:
"I want to plead with you the necessity of
having a music of our own, a living tradition
of music created in this country, a music
that will satisfy those parts of our being
that cannot be satisfied by the music of
other nations."S
He described this talk later as "a heart-felt sort of manifesto"
springing "from a very real musical isolation". 6
Coincidentally, Lilburn had been thinking of travelling to
America at this time to attend a Summer School at Tanglewood, Boston.
7
He had heard about the school from a visiting Professor Canby, who
had explained that it was run on a workshop basis (the idea of
'workshops' for music was a new one to Lilburn at this stage\ and that
it was organised by the Boston Symphony Orchestra with most of the
orchestra members in attendance.
Needless to say, Lilburn was delighted
to find that a similar (in concept) venture was being planned in New
Zealand.
Lilburn's Cambridge Overture was performed by the orchestra at
the Cambridge Music School (the orchestra was strings only in that
first year). Lilburn was pleasantly surprised to find that he had
underestimated the ab~lity of the student performers, and had
mistakenly 'written down' to what he had thought was their level. 8
evident.
Lilburn's success as composer-in-residence of the school was
Because of this, and because of the large number of
musicians interested in composition attending the school, it was
decided to run a special composers' group the following year.
This group at the second music. school included Ronald Tremain,
Dorothea Franchi~
Edwin Carr, Ronald Dellow, Larry Pruden and David
Farquhar, all of whom,to varying degrees, would eventually make
4 Douglas Lilburn, Cambridge Music School address, pp.I-2.
S ibid. p.3.
6 Douglas Lilburn, University of Otago Open Lecture,p.l.
7 Professor of English Literature at Yale.
S Scott Papers.