Notes

Music School Centre of the U. S. is now the claim of Chicago, which with a 1920 population of 2,701,705 is just reported, by Critic Maurice Rosenfeld of that city's Daily News, to have no less than 60,000 music students, exclusive of children and adolescents pursuing general education.

Basso. Recently Mrs. Louise MacPherson fell, fractured her hip. Her husband, Joseph, about to make his debut before the jeweled Metropolitan audience and 38 fellow-townsmen who had traveled all the way from Nashville, Tenn., for the occasion, visited her in the hospital, left, chased a taxi, caught a cold, could not appear as the King in Aida (TIME, Dec. 20). Last week Basso MacPherson sang. He has a pleasant near-basso voice. But only two Nashville people witnessed the triumph--his mother-in-law and his teacher. Because the Metropolitan Opera does not broadcast, Mrs. MacPherson turned off her radio, heard Joseph MacPherson Jr., 2, warble the songs he learned on his basso-papa's knee.

Thirteen-year old Robbye Cook, Pensacola, Fla., songstress, secured an audition last week, the first for one so young, before Impresario Gatti-Casazza and Chairman-Director Kahn of the Metropolitan Opera, in Manhattan. In the wings of the huge auditorium, empty save for these gentlemen, her aunt and newsgatherers, she doffed her plaid coat; on the stage sang Danny Boy and two modern numbers. Signor Gatti-Casazza delegated Mr. Kahn to report; the latter told her to rest for a while, study, come back after a year or two to sing for him again.