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Dances. The Highland Fling, the Irish Jig, Sailor's Hornpipe and the Sword Dance were among the dances. Dancers were judged for ease and grace, correct costume, expressive "hauling" and "heaving." The sword dancer, who dances over a naked sword crossing its sheath, must not touch either, but must dance fast, with abandon. Best-Dressed Highlander. He must own his clothes. His shoes must be low-cut brogues without buckles. The kilt must be made of his clan tartan, worn plain, no bows, no ribbons. The sporran (bag) must be of mottled leather or fur. If fur, the animal must be native to the Highlands, either otter, wildcat, badger, fox or skunk. The head must be mounted on the fur.
Best dressed Highlander was Merchant Thomas Campbell, president of the Highland Games Association of Ed monton.
Notable among the singers at the Banff Festival was Marjorie Kennedy-Fraser, composer, concert-singer of Scottish music, famed for her rediscovery of Hebridean folk songs. She comes from a family known in the lowlands as the "Singing Kennedys" and has spent many years in the Hebrides Islands, off the northern coast of Scotland, learning the songs of the native crofters and singing them to exiled Scots in the colonies. She traveled to Banff from Scotland especially for the festival.
New Orchestra
No Germanic city like Milwaukee can long endure without music of its own. One Milwaukee orchestra lately died. Last week another was born, named the Milwaukee Philharmonic, with 65 players from the old. Frank Laird Waller, the new conductor, is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin who has been organist, accompanist, vocal teacher, guest conductor in Paris, Dresden, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Rochester, Minneapolis, Cincinnati. With steady, vigorous beat he last week directed his Milwaukee debut. Featured were Tenor Edward Johnson, Soprano Yvonne Gall and Baritone William Phillips in excerpts from Faust. The rest was straight fare—Wagner's Rienzi Overture, Liszt's Les Preludes, Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony; also there was George Gershwin's American in Paris whose absurdities caused the usual giggles. Suggested Critic Richand S. Davis of the Milwaukee Journal: "He should now construct A Frenchman in Chicago, which ought to be an even more impish diversion."
* Slogan originally meant a clan war-cry.