Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), Wednesday 9 June 1937, page 6


THE SOCIAL ROUND (Continued from Page 5)

LAUNCESTON ACTIVITIES

VERSATILE WOMAN MUSICIAN

Mrs. S. V. Tilley's Varied Art

(By "Sonia")

A MONG Launceston's musical women

one who stands out for her talent in playing several instruments, and in the composition of music, is Mrs. S. V. Tilley, of Arthur St. She can write music almost as readily as she writes a letter, and obtains much delight from the exercise of this art, as well as from playing her own pieces. Mrs. Tilley is the youngest member of the world-famous Corrick musical family. Her father, mother, five sisters, and brother toured the world as a vocal and instrumental concert party. Mrs. Tilley, who was then too young to accompany them, was bom at Christchurch (N.Z.), and studied under the well-known organ-ist, Mr. Maughan Barnett. She then went to Sydney and studied at the Garcia School of Music, and when only 19 years of age wrote works for the pipe organ. She came to Launces-ton with her family during the war period, and before her marriage took a prominent part in city orchestral activity. Her father was an accom-plished musician and organist, and her mother a contralto singer, so she has inherited from them her art and taste for music. Her young son, Nor-man, gives promise of carrying on the family musical talent; he is an excep-tionally good violinist for his age, and played in public when only five years old. Mrs. Tilley has six young child-ren, and she still finds time to main-tain her keen practical interest in her music; all the members of her family are being taught music from the earliest possible age. An exception-ally versatile musician, Mrs. Tilley plays the organ-she has played that instrument in various Launceston churches-the piano and the violin, and all of them very well. She also sings very sweetly, has studied elocution and physical culture, and has a mark-ed facility for setting the words of poems to music. Many poems writ-ten by Mr. A. G. Waterworth, form-erly a well-known Launceston school teacher, were set to music by her. She also treated in the same way John O'Hara's poem, "Little Creek."

Choral Work

Mrs. Tilley has written anthems which have been sung, and set to music a hymn for the -Christian Endeavour Convention in Launceston, which was played on the pipe organ and sung in the Albert Hall by a choir of 1,000 voices. When the "East of Suez" bazaar was held in Laun-ceston some music with an Eastern

atmosphere was desired, so Mrs. Tilley wrote a suite which proved very attractive for the purpose. She has written many overtures, including one of 22 pages of manuscript. Many violin solos have also been composed by her, and when one was played by her son at the Devonport competitions

it was highly praised by the adjudi-cator, and she gained first prize at a competition for her musical composi-tion in a class of 28 entries.

Though Mrs. Tilley is very much occupied with her family, she is always ready to assist with her musical ability at any function, and she plays frequently at Launceston gatherings, especially those of the Victoria League, and often in asso

MRS. S. V. TILLEY

A member of the Corrick family renowned for its musical versatility.

ciation with her sister, Mrs. Edward Sadleir. In her home life her music is her hobby. "I love music and I spend hours at a time at it," she told

her interviewer, and added, "I delight . in expressing my feelings and imagi-native ideas in the musical form." Mrs. Tilley is a delightful entertainer and played for her visitor several of her pianoforte compositions, and also sang. Her son Norman also played two of her violin compositions to her pianoforte accompaniments.

When Mrs. Tilley expresses her enthusiasm for music one can quite understand the great pleasure that she gets out of it and the very large part that it plays in her life.

A Cooking Controversy

The remarks of Mrs. E. A. Water-worth, of Hobart, President of the Wo-men's Non-Party League, as published in "The Mercury," on Friday, on the policy of show societies in catering for the display of cakes and the frip-peries of cookery in preference to solid meals attracted much interest among the women in the North who are as-sociated with this branch of exhibition work. Many do not agree that the societies are adopting an injudicious practice. Asked for her opinion on the question, Mrs. F. T. Holmes (Pre-sident of the Women's Show Judges Association of Tasmania) commented: "I have not seen the Hobart schedule but from intimate acquaintance with those for the Launceston, Rocherlea, Lilydale, Scottsdale, and Campbell Town shows, I commend them to the women's committee of the Royal Ho-bart Show. Is it the function of shows to undertake the training of women in the feeding of their families? We contend that shows are held to enable women to show their capabilities, and we consider it would be impossible to cook and show a plain dinner. Even if that was done, it would not appeal to the general public. If a woman can make beautiful jams, jellies, custards, cakes, and scones, such as they are encouraged to display at the shows, surely she can cook a plain dinner." Mrs. Holmes also pointed out that through the publicity given to cook-ing methods the women of today were helped in every way to provide whole-some and nourishing food for their families. Girls were also taught cook-ing at school.

Mrs. F. D. Bowrlng (secretary of the Women's Show Judges Associa-tion), when questioned, agreed with the views expressed, by Mrs. Holmes.

Help For The Needy

A very active charitable worker in Launceston is Miss I. Kelly, of the St. John's Mission. She not only attends to the needs of those who seek the help of the Mission but organises fairs to raise funds. For 15 years she has played the chief part in conducting two fairs a year. She cuts out garments for men, women and children, and then obtains the aid of women supporters of tile Mission to do the sewing. These are then sold at the fair. Her work is so well-known, that many women from country centres, such as Longford and Evandale, came to the recently held fair to make purchases. Miss Kelly also visits the homes of those who ask for assistance, to see if the cases are deserving. She remarked

that, so far this year, she had not met with very much extreme poverty, but that tlie next three months usually constituted the period during which those in need reauired the most help.