National music centre truly ‘visionary’ project

Wednesday, 25 October 2023

Over the last few months, I have been subjected to a range of people regaling me with tales from their international travels.

Sadly, I have not managed to get away overseas this year, so I have listened to their stories of adventures in Berlin, New York, Shanghai, London, Los Angeles, Helsinki and Vienna with some envy.

One of the key factors that makes cities distinctive, vibrant and a magnet for talent is that they have significant centres which celebrate and promote music.

In 2027 Wellington/Te Whanganui-a Tara will be numbered among that list of cities as the visionary National Music Centre project comes to fruition.

The national music centre – which is a partnership between the New Zealand School of Music–Te Kōkī and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Te Tira Pūoro o Aotearoa, located in the strengthened and refurbished Wellington Town Hall – will be the world-class national heart of music-making in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The building and neighbouring Te Ngākau Civic Square will buzz with energy, sound, ideas and performances.

Exceptionally generous donors in the Wellington region, including Sir Peter Jackson and Dame Fran Walsh, have embraced this visionary project and have given or pledged more than $30 million towards making the national music centre a reality.

A national music centre means the NZSO can create new kinds of concerts and programmes. In doing so, we’ll reach bigger audiences in the Wellington region and more New Zealanders across the motu. At the same time, the National Music Centre means the NZSO can continue to perform the greatest music of the classical canon, along with absorbing contemporary works, including Aotearoa New Zealand composers, and host many of the world’s best soloists and conductors.

An enhanced partnership between the NZSO and the New Zealand School of Music–Te Kōkī is equally exciting. This will give young musicians access to our national orchestra and professional musicians in ways they could only dream of, leading to opportunities for careers across a range of musical genres.

For example, the NZSO and the NZSM have just launched a new and innovative music course, t which will give students hands-on experience of performing in a world-class professional orchestra.

The Master of Fine Arts (Creative Practice) in Orchestral Studies is a one-year course, beginning in 2024, during which students will complete a performance-based internship with the NZSO and one-on-one tutoring from the orchestra’s players.

It’s the first time they have partnered to offer a course where music students can be NZSO interns. This will turbo-charge their trajectory to success in a professional, high-calibre music performance career and as arts leaders and critical thinkers.

This is the equivalent of a film student getting to work on the set of a big-budget movie, or a club rugby player given the chance to play with the All Blacks. For music students, performing with their national orchestra and being taught by our highly talented and skilled musicians is a potentially life-changing opportunity.

The national music centre will open up even more opportunities for the NZSO and the Wellington region – particularly from a new state-of-the-art recording studio in the refurbished Town Hall’s basement. Whether it will be the NZSO recording movie soundtracks or recording performances by artists across all genres of music in the Town Hall, it will further confirm Wellington’s status as a UNESCO City of Film.

The benefits of a national music centre will not simply be for the NZSO and the NZSM. Far from it. It will be a substantial underpinning of our city’s claim to the “the creative capital” title and be of enormous value to our creative industries, to the Wellington region and to the nation. Ultimately, all New Zealanders will enjoy a wider variety of concerts and musical experiences of all kinds in the Town Hall.

And for those in the Wellington region who prefer a night out enjoying rock ‘n’ roll, hip-hop, pop or jazz, the refurbished Town Hall will continue to host a wide variety of gigs, as it has for more than a century.

• Peter Biggs is Chief Executive of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra