2015 Pettman/DARE Scholar in Music Education

Born in South Korea, raised in New Zealand | Arts Management | Music Education | Jan-Oct Opera North, Leeds | Oct-Dec NZ Opera, Auckland

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BALLET. OPERA. ORCHESTRA. THEATRE.

NZ Opera, Royal New Zealand Ballet, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and Auckland Theatre Company join hands to create an exclusive new subscription package for young Aucklanders aged 20-40. There are only 100 subscriptions available and the offer closes on 31 January 2016!

2016 shows include: Polo by Dean Parker in February (ATC), The Wizard of Oz in June (RNZB), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (NZO), A Musical Thriller in September, and Outraged in October (APO).

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Final Performance

Over six weeks, we’ve had the pleasure of exploring Mozart’s operatic masterpiece: The Magic Flute. Mozart composed 22 operas in his lifetime - 10 whilst he was still a teenager - and this was his last opera. It received its premiere in 1791 in Vienna, and we were thrilled to share our ‘half-hour’ version 224 years later on Friday 27th November 2015 at the Gladstone Primary School hall.

Six wonderful student speakers tell the story of the Magic Flute - too many characters and drama to fit into only 12 slides!

Proud parents!

The evil serpent getting ready to coil in the Overture.

Cheeky Papageno’s Aria - flutes and all!

Dream team (L-R): Joanne Cole NZ Opera Head of Education, Gemma Lee Project Manager and 2015 Pettman/DARE Scholar in Music Education, Jessica Wells Gladstone Primary School Music Teacher, Emma Sloman Workshop Leader and NZ Opera Resident Artist, Andrew Gordon Audience Engagement Coordinator. Huge thanks to Julie Zhu for the wonderful photos.

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N.B. The page with the list of participating pupils’ names have been intentionally omitted from this post.

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Room is all set up and ready to go for The Exchange, a roundtable discussion bringing over 10 people from various disciplines ranging from classical performer to academics. Today, we’ll be discussing the topic of Music education in the context of a culturally diverse community. Looking forward to an energising couple hours ahead!

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Two Minutes with Gemma Lee

Recently we caught up with pianist and Pettman/DARE Scholar *Gemma Lee*. Gemma’s been working with New Zealand Opera on an exciting new music education initiative called *Opera Half Hour*, with support from DARE and the University of Auckland School of Music. More on that soon, but for now we wanted to find out more about Gemma.

NZ Opera, it’s been great working with you! Here’s to many more happy collaborations ahead.

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Massive bowl of coffee kind of morning after one hell of a week.

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Thank you!

What a whirlwind of 6 weeks - Opera Half Hour has officially finished! We had an amazing final performance yesterday at the Gladstone Primary School Hall, and received glowing feedback from parents and the participating kids. It has been an absolute pleasure working with these wonderful kids - their enthusiasm and commitment has been a real inspiration - and the staff could not have been more supportive. The final performance program (with a full list of thank you’s) will be uploaded in the next few days, along with some special photos from the performance itself. Watch this space!

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Inspiring students with opera

A classical musician is introducing primary school students to opera through a six-week programme.

I had an interview a couple weeks ago with Emily Ford for the North Shore Times. As a resident of the North Shore for 16 years, I grew up with this local newspaper always wedged in our mailbox, filled with lovely stories that make up this wonderful area. Only a couple days to go until the Final Performance for Opera Half Hour - the pressure is on!

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For our final workshop, we were joined by special guests from NZ Opera: Stuart Maunder (General Director), Joanne Cole (Education Director), and Andrew Gordon (Audience Engagement Coordinator). Stuart worked wonders in the last half hour of the workshop; blocking the arias the students have been working on for the past three weeks, and shaping it into a performance we can proudly present to our family and friends in two weeks time.

All hands were on deck for this workshop, and it was great to have Julie Zhu there to capture these exciting moments. Many thanks to the Artistic Team for all their efforts, and Jess Wells for her phenomenal organisational skills in managing to book the school hall for all our workshops!

Next up: Trip to the NZ Opera Technical Centre in Onehunga. Costumes, props, set design, and a special performance.

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Enjoying the sun at my favourite hideout in Auckland city.

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Pre-Workshop 4

A busy Monday started off with a meeting at NZ Opera with the big boss Stuart (General Director), Jo (Education Director), and Andrew (Audience Engagement Coordinator) in preparation for our final workshop session this Friday. Stuart will be coming in to achieve the impossible - block five arias (albeit short and sweet) in half an hour! We don’t call it Opera Half Hour for nothing...

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Workshop 3 done and dusted! Two more sessions to go, then the final performance is in order... Our lovely workshop leader Emma in full action!

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2016 Operas

La Traviata, The Magic Flute, Sweeney Todd

We hope our Opera Half Hour participants will be inspired to head along to watch NZ Opera’s The Magic Flute next year! Conducted by the incomparable Wyn Davies and directed by Sara Brodie, who was recently honoured with the 2015 Laureate Award from Arts Foundation of New Zealand, this is surely an unmissable magical event!

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Guess which opera this is from...! Thank you to Elizabeth Whiting (Head of Costume) and Steve Crowcroft (Technical Manager) from NZ Opera for sourcing beautiful costumes like this for our participants to enjoy. And most importantly, for letting me hassle them constantly!

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Post-Workshop 2

For Workshop 2, we were joined by special guests Marcus Norman (2016 NZ Pettman/DARE Scholar) and Andrew Gordon (Audience Engagement Coordinator, NZ Opera). The enthusiasm continued to soar in the workshop, and it was great to see everyone taking part and fully engaging in the story and music of the Magic Flute. The kids received an additional resource pack that they can take home to further explore the opera outside of workshop hours. Originally created for teachers who are not familiar with bringing opera/music into a classroom setting, hopefully this will allow the parents and fellow family members to come together in enjoying all the wonders the Magic Flute has to offer.

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Our lovely accompanist intern Siyu has her end-of-year recital today. Wishing her all the very best! I’ll be stepping in behind the piano - bit of a change from the spreadsheets and emails…

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Bring on the silly season... and the champions in black! This modestly sized glass should do it...