Vercoe, Tony 1919–

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Vercoe, Tony 1919–

(Anthony Arthur Vercoe)

PERSONAL:

Born August 23, 1919, in Nelson, New Zealand; son of Norman Arthur (an accountant) and Eileen M.A. (a homemaker) Vercoe; married Mary Tyndall Withers (a homemaker), July 15, 1950; children: Ross Arthur, Elizabeth Kane. Ethnicity: "Caucasian." Education: Graduated from Nelson College, 1937; studied at Trinity College of Music, London; Royal College of Music, A.R.C.M. Politics: "Liberal/Green." Religion: "Anglican." Hobbies and other interests: "Writing and music."

ADDRESSES:

Home— Whitby, New Zealand. E-mail— [email protected].

CAREER:

Historian and musician. Lands and Survey Department, Wellington, New Zealand, 1938-41, 1945-46; opera singer in Britain, early 1950s; New Zealand Opera Company, Wellington, opera singer, beginning 1954; New Zealand Broadcasting Service, Wellington, head office worker, 1954-59; Reed Publishing Company, New Zealand, manager of Kiwi Records Division, 1959-78; Kiwi Pacific Records Limited, founder, producer, and publisher, 1978-90. Military service: New Zealand Army, 1941-45, served in North Africa; became corporal.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Mario Grisi Prize for Singing, 1951; Lilburn Trust Award, 2003, for outstanding services to New Zealand music.

WRITINGS:

Yesterday's Drums, Steele Roberts (Wellington, New Zealand), 2001.

Survival at Stalag IVB: Soldiers and Airmen Remember Germany's Largest POW Camp of World War II, McFarland (Jefferson, NC), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

A native of New Zealand, Tony Vercoe is a historian, opera singer, and record label executive. Vercoe entered the media industry in the 1950s, after having studied singing and served in World War II as part of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. In 1959 he began managing the Kiwi Records Division at Reed Publishing Company, and in 1979 he took over the division and turned it into Kiwi Pacific Records Limited. There he worked publishing and producing until his retirement from the industry in the early 1990s. The label was for a long period the only venue for local New Zealand and South Pacific artists to record their music. In an interview with Peter Mechen for Mechen's New Zealand Music Page, Vercoe explained what he has done since retiring: "Not much in the way of music, but I've sat back and listened to a good many recordings and gone to a lot of live music, … and I've done what I wanted to do for quite a long time, which is some writing." He concluded the interview, noting that "in retrospect … it seems that much of my life has been involved in one way or another with words and music: and that surely makes me a fortunate fellow." Vercoe's accomplishments in New Zealand's music industry were recognized in 2003 with the Lilburn Trust Award.

Vercoe published his first book,Yesterday's Drums, in 2001. The work recounts his experiences and those of his comrades during World War II. In particular he describes in great detail the breakout at Minqar Qaim, Egypt, escaping from an Italian prisoner-of-war camp, and the human spirit of prisoners of war. In 2006 he followed this account with another,Survival at Stalag IVB: Soldiers and Airmen Remember Germany's Largest POW Camp of World War II. The book tells of his and others' hardships in Stalag IVB, a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany that interned thousands of Allied soldiers from a number of countries. In an interview on the Mechen's New Zealand Music Page, Vercoe remarked that "it was a story I thought was well worthwhile researching and writing, and it's never been told. There are more famous places such as Colditz which have been well documented, but not this one."

Vercoe told CA: "I was born in Nelson in 1919 and educated at Nelson College. From 1938 I worked for the Lands and Survey Department, Wellington, concurrently studying singing with Stanley Oliver and also joining the Wellington Territorial Regiment—‘The City of Wellington's Own.’

"Following overseas war service with 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force and a year back in my old pub, I was granted a study bursary for singing at the Trinity College of Music, London, with Charles Kennedy Scott. After a year and a half, I won a three-year opera and drama scholarship to the Royal Col-lege of Music under the direction of Clive Carey, gaining my Associate of the Royal College of Music and the Mario Grisi Prize for Singing. In 1951 I played the baritone lead Baritrae in Peter Tranchell's new Festival of Britain opera. I then became a singing actor member of the Old Vic Company in the year 1951/52. At the 1952 Edinburgh Festival, I played the Captain in the Scottish ballad opera The Highland Fair, the music by Cedric Thorpe Davie.

"From 1954, back in Wellington, I sang roles with Donald Munro's New Zealand Opera Company, also making broadcasts and appearing as a soloist in concerts and oratorio. After some years on the head office staff of the New Zealand Broadcasting Service, I joined the Reed Publishing Company to manage and develop the Kiwi Records Division there, eventually establishing this as the independent company Kiwi Pacific Records Limited."