Document
The Hallé, Ida Carroll
Northern School Of Music (NSM)
1953

In 1953, Ida Carroll gave a speech to the South Manchester Hallé Club about the Northern School of Music, of which she was secretary at the time. "It is perhaps unique in some ways," due to it's large growth from 9 to 560 students in 33 years, all with little financial aid. "It has to stand on its own feet and to pay its own way, and despite many anxious moments, we feel rather proud of the fact that for thirty-three years this has been done."

She describes it as the "happy atmosphere which you sense from the moment you enter the door." She remembers on her first day at the school as a student "feeling very small and insignificant."

She remembers that "we were told never to harbour a grouse." (Not the bird, I assume? Although you never know, it was the '50s.)

She says that "perhaps I can sum up any talk about the Northern School of Music by ending on a Perfect Cadence - with the dominant harmony being Happiness and the tonic, or key-note, Work."

Ref: CARROLL/IGC/9
With thanks to the Ida Carroll Trust

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.