Harry Plunket Greene - Competitions and Festivals, Teaching

Competitions and Festivals, Teaching

In his later years Plunket Greene was busily involved in the organization of music events and in teaching and administration. In 1923 he made his fifteenth voyage across the Atlantic (the first had been in 1893), on this occasion to act as a judge in Musical Competitions throughout Canada. From New York he went to Toronto by train to join Granville Bantock. This was to be at the five Festivals of Ontario, Manitoba, Sasketchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. This was the first Ontario Festival (Toronto) (with Robert Watkin-Mills and Boris Hambourg also in attendance), the 6th in Winnipeg (with Herbert Witherspoon and Cecil Forsyth assisting), where the Earl Grey trophy was competed for, the 16th in Edmonton (Alberta), with choirs from Lethbridge and Calgary, and in Prince Albert they were with Herbert Howells. The promotion and encouragement of these events provided not only a great spectacle and opportunity for music-making, but also infused a competitive spirit into the works of choirs, singers and instrumentalists in the award of prizes (in the tradition begun at Kendal, UK in c.1889), tending to the encouragement of excellence. Plunket Greene repeated the experience in Sasketchewan in 1931, together with Harold Samuel, Maurice Jacobson and Hugh Roberton.

Among those to profit from his teaching was Sir Keith Falkner, whom Plunket Greene coached in his famous interpretation of the Lamentation of Job in Parry's oratorio Job.