First concert of the year for singers

Bay of Islands Singers will be presenting their first concert of the year at the Turner Centre on the last day of July.

The programme called On The
Wings of a Dove has been devised by Musical Director John Jackets. It features music by Bach, Handel, Mendelssohn, Fauré and Rutter and is intended to bring comfort in these times of stress arising from Covid and the events in the Ukraine.

Jackets’ association with the Bay of Islands Singers goes back to early 1990s. He moved to Brunei Darussalam and became Director of the Serunai Singers chamber choir. On his return to Kerikeri he became a choir member and was appointed Director in 2009. Under his direction the choir, along with visiting soloists and orchestras, has performed in Kerikeri, Kaitaia and Whangarei.

The July programme features two soloists. Soprano Tania Priebs completed a BMus Hons (1st class) at the University of Auckland and was named the University’s Musician of the Year in 2009 alongside Pene Pati from Solo Mio.

She has sung in concert with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and Andrea Bocelli and has worked with NZ Opera, Operatunity and the Opera Factory.

Tenor, Michael Burch, first sang in public in a Sunday School choir at the age of three. He eventually turned professional and moved to England in 1973, spending two years at Glyndebourne Opera before freelancing in opera and oratorio.

He sailed a home-built yacht back to New Zealand in the mid-80s and was a presenter on Concert FM before returning to singing. He moved to Kerikeri in 2009.

In addition to the choir programme there will be a short organ work by Bach performed by Michael Bell and Marcello’s Oboe Concerto performed by Pippa Howes on flute and Philippa Mandeno on oboe.

turnercentre.co.nz

Working with children and animals

Children and animals – it’s a winning combination that’s been raising money for a Northland charity dedicated to rehoming mistreated pets.

Bay of Islands Animal Rescue was an obvious choice when New Shoots Early Learning Centre in Kerikeri went looking for a local charity to support.

Preschool teacher Zoe Letica said the fundraiser was also an opportunity to teach the children about kindness, empathy and responsibility.

“If we start with them being kind to animals while they’re young, we can break the cycle [of animal cruelty] for the future. We also wanted a cause the children could be hands-on with and relate to easily – so what better than animals?”

New Shoots staff went door-knocking at local businesses for support and put together three family hampers to raffle off to parents and visitors. Tickets were also sold at Orrs Pharmacy in Kaikohe.

The first prize hamper was big enough to set a family up for Christmas, Letica said. The goal was to raise $2500 for Bay of Islands Animal Rescue.

The charity’s volunteers also brought a puppy and a kindle of kittens (yes, ‘kindle’ is the collective noun) for the kids to cuddle, and talked to the children about keeping safe around animals. Letica said she’d been amazed by the support for the raffle.

“Every business we approached got behind it. It was really humbling to see, especially now with so much bad stuff happening in the world.”

The early learning centre plans to run a number of fundraisers each year with a different charity benefiting each time.

Spirit of New Zealand pays a visit

The three-masted barquentine, Spirit of New Zealand Te Waka Herenga Tangata o Aotearoa, called in to Opua last week. Her visit was brief.

She was tied up alongside for provisioning for a 10-day voyage. She had been five weeks in Whangarei for her annual refit and then sailed north to the Bay of Islands.

“They eat well on board,” said the on-shore support person, Pete Anderson, who lives in Auckland and who drove to Opua to load up the supplies.

“They have meat and veggies, salads and always have a dessert,” he said. He didn’t mention fish.

While in Opua the ship will swap crews and bring in a new batch of trainees, the 16- to 19-year-old students who are accepted from individual schools to complete the 10-day sailing voyage. There’s a full-time cook on board, six permanent crew, an engineer and up to eight volunteers, or trainees.

Once provisioned, which took about 10 hours, she was at sea again for the 10-day journey back to Auckland. She may call in to Great Barrier Island but that would be weather-dependent.

In addition to the students’ 10-day voyage, the Spirit of New Zealand will do an educational, five-day trip for Year 10 students who will compete against three other schools for the bragging rights of winning the Spirit trophy.

Occasionally she will do a trip for adults to give over-18-year-olds the chance to experience a sailing boat.

The Spirit of New Zealand is operated under the auspices of the Spirit of Adventure Trust.

Youth and Emerging Art at Turner Centre

An exhibition of youth and emerging art called ARTS XL, ‘Ramping Up’ is on display at the Turner Centre from 4th August.

It is collated by photographer Claire Gordon under the KidsmART brand and includes a silent auction. She said she noticed the creative talent among youngsters in the community and how they were either producing work on sub-quality paper or were really struggling with the cost of materials.

“I managed to get costs sponsored for the first exhibition with all the funds being returned directly to the youth specifically to spend on their creative development.”

The “Ramping” refers to the staircase leading to the upper floor of the Turner Centre where the artwork is displayed progressively along the walls adjacent to the stairs.

The artists are either seniors at school or graduates at college studying creative arts and they are invited to exhibit alongside the emerging artists who have chosen their career path and are starting on their journey.

The inaugural exhibition is subtitled “Hektor Meets the Lurker” and is by youth artist Hector Danilo and emerging artist Jackson Ansted.

Jackson Ansted is now aged 26. He attended Kerikeri High School and then Northtec where he achieved a Bachelor of Arts.

His artistic practice centres around his character ‘Lurker’. He aims at providing a light-hearted, tongue in cheek retrospective on his life with influences in skateboarding and various 80s and 90s skateboard literature.

“Hekter” is Hector Danilo, currently a Year 13 student at Kerikeri High School. He creates fine line drawings that challenge the status quo. He was a finalist for the National Youth Arts Award in 2021 and won the Art trophy in two consecutive years at Kerikeri High School. He has already undertaken some commission work depicting the current war in the Ukraine.

Claire Gordon says she would love to connect with more youth artists to display their work.