SCUNA history » IVs and Minifests hosted by SCUNA to 1988 » 1971 IV
Caveat: I have taken the liberty of including some of my own recollections of the 1971 IV. I was extensively involved in the planning, and then acted as IV Secretary. It's a long time ago, however: other viewpoints (and documents!) would be welcome. Please me.
On this page:
On other pages: Individual Items concert | Main concert | IV Photo
The fact that SCUNA was able to host an IV in its ninth year of operation is, I believe, first and foremost a tribute to Chris Burrell's conductorship. From 1968 to late 1970, SCUNA's repertoire was so interesting, its musical standard so high, and the means used to reach that standard so calm and positive, that the number of choristers grew and grew. Dedication and esprit de corps were rife!
Other major forces were:
Hosting an IV in Canberra was Ken Healey's idea, and quite an adventurous one. SCUNA had been a very small choir indeed in 1966 and 1967.
Traditionally, the first week of IV takes place out of town at a residential "camp", at a school or college or barracks. (I've never actually heard of tents being involved!) That part we could manage, but during the second week, visiting choristers are usually billeted in the homes of local choristers. In 1971, most SCUNA members came from interstate and lived in halls of residence. Billeting was going to be a major issue.
IV planning starts being mentioned in Oyezes in 1970 - cutting things pretty fine! By June 1970, a steering committee had been set up:1
The IV committee was elected at the SCUNA AGM in September 1970.2
| Convenor: | Brian Hingerty |
| Secretary: | Valerie Brown3 |
| Treasurer: | Ian Bollen (d. 1996) |
| Librarian: | Annabel Wheeler |
| Billeting Officer: | Julian Brown |
| Social Directors: | Dorelle Pinch, Mark Hyman |
| Transport Officers: | Sue Baldwin (d. 1988), Gary Hovey |
Originally, Ken Healey was to be Convenor, but he got sidetracked setting up Canberra Opera. SCUNA was very fortunate that Brian Hingerty accepted the job.
Ken did not depart, however, before ensuring (through tireless diplomacy, according to Julian4) that the main IV concert would occur under the wing of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra.5
Much of the planning had to do with gathering such support. As secretary, I remember attending several meetings with Jon Stephens,6 representative of the Cultural Affairs Committee which was organising the 1971 Aquarius Festival.
The Aquarius Festival of University Arts is cited as supporting our Individual Items Concert (see programme). At the 1971 AIVCC (Australian Intervarsity Choral Council Council) Meeting, however, IV treasurer Ian Bollen reported that "all the promises to Canberra IV of financial assistance from NUAUS and the University Arts Festival had come to nothing".7
Mozart's Mass in C Minor was always on the programme for the main concert but, in earlier stages, the Poulenc Gloria was also considered, and SCUNA approached George Dreyfus (then a recent ANU Creative Arts Fellow) about composing an IV overture.8 I don't know what happened to this idea.
Choosing a venue for the camp involved letter-writing, meetings, and driving about. Originally Goulburn was investigated.9 I remember driving up to Mittagong in my VW beetle with Ian Bollen (IV Treasurer) to visit Frensham school. I don't remember who we talked to. I do remember looking over the accommodation and being somewhat taken aback by the dormitories on open verandahs!10
This involved appealing to the Canberra community.11 Annabel Wheeler, who helped with billeting, told me that the Canberra Symphony Orchestra kindly shared their subscriber list with SCUNA. Annabel and Julian, both of whom had to stay in Canberra and work during IV, used the list for door-knocking.
In those days, there were plenty of women at home to importune. Annabel was surprised how many of them said yes, then rang the next day to say no, presumably after talking to their husbands.
The few SCUNA members who lived off-campus took in as many choristers as they could. I believe we billeted five.12 One night we were persuaded to host a "bed-in", when the entire loungeroom was taken up with mattresses and choristers.13
22nd INTERVARSITY CHORAL FESTIVAL
CANBERRA, MAY 1971
Patrons: H.C. COOMBS, M.A.,PH.D., HON.D.LITT., HON.LLD., F.A.A.
EMERITUS PROFESSOR SIR JOHN CRAWFORD, C.B.E., M.EC., HON.D.SC.
At Frensham we had accommodation ranging from the aforementioned open verandahs to pleasant double rooms, catered meals in the dining room, and Clubbe Hall for performances - and rehearsals? How frustrating - and peculiar - not to be able to remember where we spent most of our time!
There was a camp revue (in Clubbe Hall? in the dining hall?) in which certain SUMS and certain SCUNAe, wearing knotted handkerchiefs on their heads, premiered the Goon Show classic, Sideways through the sewers of the Strand.
SCUNA's main item was the masterpiece My Fair Macbeth by Sue Baldwin and Dorelle P____, who also provided duet piano accompaniment. It is one of the tragedies of my life that I've been unable to locate the score of this brilliant work.
It starred Phil T_____ as Macbeth and Ian Bollen in pink fluffy bikini as Lady Macbeth. Maureen C______ featured as assorted stage directions including "Hours pass". Meg MacD_____, Johnny A________ and I played the three witches. When we weren't stirring the cauldron, we represented trees. We were joined in this endeavour by university chaplain and staunch SCUNA bass George G______. One of our numbers included the words:
"I have often walked in these woods before,
But the trees have always stayed where they were put before.
Now from far and wide, and from every side,
Birnam Wood seems to come to Dunsinane."
I think you can guess the tune.
This is one of the few clean verses in the entire work. I remember a couple of other verses, but I'm not publishing them here!
On the night, we gave an unconvincing performance, I'm afraid. It was a complex work, rehearsal time had been short, and most of us were drunk. The Revue must have taken place immediately after the Boat Races, IV's traditional beer-drinking competition (see below).
Being drunk helped overcome any inhibitions we might have felt about singing rude songs, but it did nothing for our ability to remember where we were supposed to be on the stage, or what was supposed to happen next. The audience was bemused.
No matter how shambolic the performance was in other respects, I'll always remember Bollie singing "I've grown accustomed to his dagger". How wonderful it would have been to resurrect the tour de force that was My Fair Macbeth and get it right!
A more formal performance, definitely in Clubbe Hall, was the concert we put on for the locals, featuring the Braz. Ps. and selections from the Mozart. Ayis conducted, and Janet Healey sang the first soprano solos.
SCUNA won all the Boat Races that were held in 1971, including the "first formal individual title race" (emphasis mine) which was "won comfortably by Richard Hartley ... resplendent in gabardine raincoat and floral headband."15
Another first in Mittagong:
"The intervarsity Sogball made its debut in May 1971 at Frensham School near Mittagong, the Canberra IV campsite, and was an instant success. The game was conceived specifically as a more picturesque alternative to the football match. The first Sogball was designed and constructed - by laborious hand-sewing - by Robert Kay (then of SUMS) and the celebrated Richard Hartley (SCUNA)".16
Apparently one of the last of its kind, the 1971 Individual Items concert took place in the Albert Hall on 22 May 1971. The page contains the programme, and excerpts from the Canberra Times review.
I don't know that this term for singing to publicise a concert had been coined in 1971, but here is the evidence (scan provided by Deborah Martin) that we did it. Ayis is conducting.
It appears that he's conducting from the score of the Mozart, so possibly we were belting out the odd chorus. The venue is Garema Place.
This is the Choral Intervarsity version of the Iron Man Race. The 1971 Presidents' Pyjamas took place on Black Mountain Peninsula. Brian was busy convening, and passed the baton to Sue Baldwin, who was acting SCUNA President during IV.
The race was awful and disgusting, as these things always are. Even the SCUNA pyjamas were disgusting: a red gingham nightshirt with a pale green plastic quilted toilet seat cover on the front, on which was sewn in brown rickrack a pubic triangle. I don't suppose, given their annual coating in silly putty, spag. bol. etc, that the pyjamas have survived, but they featured in a number of Ross Worrall's IV films.17
See separate page which includes the programme for the main concert, and excerpts from the Canberra Times review. Peter Campbell lists James Bonnefin among the soloists,18 but he's not mentioned in the programme. Perhaps he sang solo in the Braz. Ps.
The recording took place at the dress rehearsal. I remember that Ernest Llewellyn talked over the singing! A rumour later circulated that one of the soloists tried to stop the recording from being issued.
The official IV photo was taken at one of the main concerts, after the Braz. Ps., with Ayis taking a bow. There's no point in reducing the size of the scan - it's hard enough to make anyone out when the photo is at full size. Accordingly, I've put the full-sized scan on a separate page. It's only 205K, but it's wide.
...otherwise known as Post-IV Parties. I don't think the abbreviation was in use in 1971. See Sue Baldwin's Post-IV Oyez of ~13 June 1971 for details of SCUNA's own party, to which I believe Ross Worrall did bring the film he'd made of the 1971 IV.
Here's a list of parties, from Sue Baldwin's Oyez of 20 June 1971:
MORE POST I.V. PARTIES:
For those of you who are devotees of the aforementioned, join the mass exodus from Canberra on the following dates:
- July 3 to Sydney
- July 17 to Adelaide
- July 31 to Melbourne
Sydney is sure to be the most popular weekend outing for Scuna-ites. SUMS will be performing the Monteverdi Vespers on Friday 2nd and hope to see a lot of beautiful Scuna faces in the audience.
DON'T FORGET: our own Post I.V. Party this Saturday night [24/7/71] at __ Norman St., Deakin. Even if you didn't go to I.V? (oops), come along and sample some of the delights that you missed.
Phheww!! With a sigh, not unmixed with a tear, SCUNA lapsed into a coma, after seeing numerous XUCS and XUMS off by train, bus, car, canoe & horse-drawn zeppelin. Many tearful farewells were said on that occasion, and many passionate embraces enjoyed. Such was the state of the nation that SCUNA virtually ceased to exist for some time. Ian Bollen was not seen for some weeks, and was eventually discovered locked inside his own cashbox, muttering unintelligibly about debts and payments; Brian Hingerty had to be exhumed from his bed daily for a fortnight before he regained sufficient energy to get up under his own steam. Your favourite rented conductor and mine, to wit (and boot), Ayis Ioannides, seemed to be fighting fit, by comparison with the rest of us, and has been very perky ever since, bless his little malformed left toenail.
Some of you will have heard of the unfortunate accident that befell Ken and Janet Heal[e]y while they were coming back from driving Joan Carden to the airport - a head-on collision from which both were lucky to escape with lacerations. Fortunately both are now recovered although Ken looks decidedly bearded.
Passionpants Hingerty has resigned from the position of SCUNA Pres. because of uncertainty as to whether he was going to remain in Canberra, (and, we secretly believ[e,] because he was ashamed of piking from the Pressy's PJ's). The voluptuous but intelligent Sue Baldwin, who was acting Pres. during I.V., was elected to this honourable post unopposed.
Sat. 26th June saw the SCUNA post-I.V. party erupt at Meg M[a]cD_____'s place. This was an orgiastic affair, especially for one couple exposing large amounts of mutual bare flesh right in the middle of the well-beaten track from fridge to lounge-room. Incidentally, why is it that SUMS always contributes to SCUNA parties, and SCUNA & SUMS to Melbourne parties, but no Melbournites ever come to Canberra? ... I think continually of those who are truly weak... 19
On to Serious matters - SCUNA gives its Second Term Concert on July 25 - Rubbra, Schutz, a Bach Cantata and the Palestrina Stabat Mater. This will, we trust, help to restore SCUNA's woefully depleted coffers to something like their former glory.
Some folks have been asking about the I.V. records - don't worry nu[r]glers! Finances are still being finalised, and as soon as they have been fixed up the record sales will be arranged. So, keep your Bakerlite bra dry, and starch your plasticene underpants. Never let it be said that Jim geblunden genicht sploon....
Mark Hyman.20
1Oyez of June 1970 by Julian Brown.
2Oyez of August 1970 by Julian Brown.
3Formerly and currently Thomson.
4Oyez of June 1970, op. cit.
5Canberra Symph concerts were always repeated, so this meant we did two performances.
6Now a screen writer?
7Peter Campbell, Laudate: the first 50 years of the Australian Intervarsity Choral Movement, PC Publishing, Canberra, 1999, p 20.
8Oyez of June 1970, op. cit.
9Ibid.
10That such an exclusive school should sleep its younger pupils out on open verandahs (with only canvas blinds) was a puzzle. The winter night temperatures in the Southern Highlands are frequently below zero. I decided the philosophy must be "Breed 'em tough". I doubt that open verandahs are still a feature.
11Billeting also involved dealing with the shock one or two members of the Canberra community experienced when they were exposed to the behaviour of their allotted choristers.
12Fran D____, Martin R____, Stuart H_______, and imminent parents Chris and Jill V___.
13"Bed-in" by analogy with teach-in, sit-in, love-in, and other terms of the day. Rob K__ was into bed-ins at the time: he also incited one at Frensham. One way of keeping warm on an open balcony!
Both Rob and Andrew K__, when I knew them at Otford SCM camps in the early 1960s, were fond of fitting as many people as possible into things. Once, on a train trip to Port Kembla, they tried to cram a train carriage. There were people lying on the luggage racks.
It wasn't a very comfortable pastime and I've always been puzzled as to why they engaged in it. Apparently it's a phenomenon which has been around since the late 1950s, starting with phonebooths and going on to cars (perhaps because of the advent of the mini minor). See Cramming People Into a Thing: A Photo History.
14Logo designed by Judith Clingan. More information on the main Intervarsities and Minifests page.
15Peter Campbell, op.cit., p 141.
16Ibid., pp 136-137 or Aicsapedia article on the Sogball
17Ross Worrall of UNCS and MMM attended and filmed every IV from 1966 to 1992. It became a tradition to have a film night during IV, showing Ross's movies of earlier festivals. Ross died in 1993 and the AIVCC has taken charge of his legacy.
18Peter Campbell, op.cit., p 99.
19A reference to one of the major works at the 1969 Adelaide IV, John Joubert's choral symphony, The Choir Invisible. One of the movements set the words to I Think Continually Of Those Who Were Truly Great, a poem by Stephen Spender.
20From Erato 5 of November 1971 (.9Mb), pp 16-17, and reproduced here with the permission of Brian Hingerty and of the writer:
"I don't have any objections to my piece from 1971 being used, although it seems to me to inform people more about the state, nature and preoccupations of undergraduate humour at that time than about the IV or about SCUNA."
Surely a fine objective, but as it happens I also learnt several things from the article: