Ought To Be Ashamed

The musical critic of the Detroit Tribune, Mr. Vilcox, who is also publi'slier of the Song Journal, writes in the Sunday News-Tribune of April 28, as follows: A copy of the bulletin announcing the festival concerts at Ann Arbor on May 17 and 18 has just reach me. How any Detroit music lover can read of the treat which is in store for the people of University City, and not teel ashamed of his own big town, when he remernbers that we are not to have so much as a one day "festival," is more than I can understand. All our boasted musical culture sounds pretty much like hollow talk when one remembers that we have not had an oratorio performance, and only one good orchestral concert in a year. # To be frank with ourselves we have not yet attained to the degree of culture where we enjoj' the best in ïnusic sufficientto pay our money to hear it. We plead hard times and reniain at home when agrêat artist, or organization, visits the city, and the next week we spend three times as much as tickets would have cost for some frivolity or other- anything wbich liappens to oe the social fad at that particular time. The managers have become familiar with this characteristic, and as a result they are not anxious to arrange ex:ensive concerts, and run the risk of osing money. # But if we cannot have May festival concerts in Detroit, we are glad that Ann Arbor is more progressive. No doubt many Detroit musicians will attend the concerts tliere.