Most of our readers will be aware of the announcement a week ago by the Minister of Broadcasting, Dr Jonathan Coleman, that Radio New Zealand would have to sustain cuts; and he eyed especially RNZ Concert. This alert was first posted on 8 March: it is now updated in order to be visible. In case the message was not clear enough, please write letters to the Minister of Broadcasting, Dr Jonathan Coleman saying whatever you feel about this move to barbarity. There is a splendid blogsite called Savepublicradio with some 20,000 names subscribed to it. That is great, but individual letters,...  Read More »

Just before the start of the Festival I resigned as music critic for The Dominion Post, with immediate effect. The main reason for setting up Middle C was to compensate for the steady reduction by The Dominion Post in the number and classes of music reviews it would accept, and readers will be aware of that. It had made my job as a reviewer steadily more difficult and frustrating. The impact of the restrictions has fallen almost entirely on concerts and recitals in smaller venues (even St Paul’s Cathedral falls into that class!), on amateur musicians and performances and thus all...  Read More »

Among other things in the Coming Events section of our Middle-C website is the complete schedule of music in the New Zealand International Arts Festival. Just as important is the music that will be heard in the St Andrew’s Concert Season, in the second and third weeks of the festival. All 20 concerts are in the schedule, in chronological order. This series is a response to the small amount of music in the festival proper; arranged by Wellington-based tenor Richard Greager and the organizer of the weekly Wednesday lunchtime concerts at St Andrew’s, Marjan van Waardenberg.  It offers a great platform –...  Read More »

Music and the print media 28 September 2009 The arrival on our desk of the two-monthly English magazine, Opera Now, prompts thoughts about the satisfactions and delights that are to be gained from real magazines, alongside the easy immediacy of the Internet. Even one who is basically fearful of a technology which seems ephemeral (who can say how safe is the stored material on tapes, CDs, memory chips, and how accessible it will be as the technology to access it evolves, becomes redundant), confesses to making frequent use of it for reference; and occasionally I find myself pursuing an unintended line...  Read More »

What’s happening with the Wellington Orchestra? 15 September 2009 Perhaps the major news story of Wellington music in the past month has been the announcement that longtime general manager of the Vector Wellington Orchestra, Christine Pearce, had resigned. In comparison with such events in most other areas of entertainment, particularly pop music, television and film, the reasons for this sudden severing of what had seemed a most successful relationship, have remained out of sight and all concerned have been tight-lipped. What is most clear is the continuing excellent relations between Pearce and Musical Director, Marc Taddei. There has never been such...  Read More »