South Australian Orchestra (1920-35)

 

E. Harold Davies  (1867-1947) was installed as Elder Professor of Music in 1919, and on March 20th, 1920, he launched an appeal for funds to establish a South Australian Orchestra, stating that the chance to hear great orchestral works was ‘essential to all students of music’ and ‘influential in the general culture of the community’.  Prof. Davies was the orchestra’s founding Conductor and Chairman of the Executive Committee.  He directed the first concert in the Adelaide Town Hall on July 24th, 1920.  Many of the players for this orchestra were staff and students of the Elder Conservatorium.  The orchestra’s Leader was Sylvia Whitington until Charles Schilsky arrived in 1924 to join the staff at the Elder Conservatorium.

In 1921, the English bassoonist and conductor, William H. Foote, A.R.C.M., was brought to Adelaide to teach woodwind instruments and orchestral playing at the Elder Conservatorium, and to conduct the South Australian Orchestra.  The University Council approved the purchase of a set of woodwind instruments for the orchestra. William Foote had been a member of the Royal Opera House Orchestra, Covent Garden, and the Queen’s Hall Orchestra, before going to Canada where he was Divisional Bandmaster to the Second Canadian Division and Bandmaster to the 28th North-Western Canadian Infantry Battalion. For services rendered with ‘Armies’ in the field he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal by King George V. He was also awarded the Mons Star. While with the Army of Occupation in Germany, he had conducted the massed bands of the Second Canadian Division numbering nearly 300 bandsmen.

  At a concert presented in the Adelaide Town Hall on April 14th, 1923, the South Australian Orchestra’s programme included Carnival Overture by Dvorak, Hiawatha Ballet Music by Coleridge-Taylor, Violin Concerto by Bruch with Sylvia Whitington as soloist, Selections from Tosca by Puccini, Entrance of the Gods into Valhalla from Das Rheingold by Wagner and Mikado Selections by Sullivan.  This was a typical South Australian Orchestra programme with music in a variety of styles to please differing tastes.

Australian composer and pianist Percy Grainger (1882-1961) donated a sum of £750 to the orchestral fund in memory of his mother in 1926, and by 1928, the fund had grown to £1,185.  William Foote left at the end of 1931, and Harold Parsons  became the orchestra’s Conductor.  The 1935 season included concerts which were conducted by Percy Grainger, and included the first Adelaide performances for some of Grainger’s compositions.  The South Australian Orchestra was wound up after the conclusion of the 1935 season to make way for the developing A.B.C. Studio Orchestra.  The woodwind instruments were sold to St Peter’s College.

 

- Robert Brown