Concert Tour

On the first day of the 1937 May holidays a handpicked group of 20 male students set out on a 1300 kilometre coach tour through country areas of South Australia. It was hoped that this exciting new venture would stimulate support for the College and attract new students at a time of dwindling enrolments during the Great Depression.

The gymnastics items, with students forming human pyramids and demonstrating bar work and tumbling skills, were more popular with audiences than the musical items – but it was the clown who stole the show.

Proceeds from this tour helped furnish a common room which ‘provided a more comfortable retreat for our smokers and a better background for our wireless set’. It also made possible the purchase of a number of gramophone recordings of the ‘Comedy Harmonists’.[1]
The concerts had been so successful that a second tour was organised for the western part of Victoria the following year. But in 1939 when the concert party was once again under way (in a coach nicknamed the ‘Yellow Peril’), World War II broke out. Dr Hamann was quick to advise that any items sung in German should be instantly deleted from the programme. Unfortunately this meant the end of the very popular ‘Schnitzelbank’ [2] as well as some much-loved folk songs.

 

Photo: Concert tour party in Pinnaroo

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[1] A German all-male close harmony ensemble performing between 1927 and 1934. They were enthusiastically received on an Australian tour in 1939, and many Concordia students attended their Adelaide concert  on June 20.

[2] Humorous  ‘cumulative’ rhyming  song with a refrain.