William Dart has been presenting New Horizons for forty years.
One of his early shows began with a serious warning to Concert Programme listeners because it featured Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols singing 'Anarchy in the UK'.
William Dart Photo: Studio Guidon
Asked if he was deliberately trying to provoke William says “I was playing the Sex Pistols in my classroom as a school teacher so why not play it on the radio as well. I was trying to represent that style of music (punk) that was coming through at the time.”
To begin with he concentrated on classic song writers, people like Randy Newman and Ray Davies; access to New Zealand music was more difficult .
William says he has high regard for the bravery of Concert programme manager Helen Young.
“I do remember what a sweetie she was, and how supportive and how open minded and forward looking she was doing that at the time; I can only imagine the sort of resistance she must have got and how she must have put it down in a typical Helen Young fashion.”
He was asked to present ten initial programmes which The Listener wrote a cover story on and it went from there becoming a regular fortnightly and has been going ever since.
William says the music he chooses reflects his classical taste and his view and is not shared by everyone.
“While I’ve always wanted to give a broad spectrum of music a platform, it’s still my taste, and I would never ever play anything that I didn’t personally vouch for unless I was being critical of it.”
Keeping up the commitment of a weekly programme for forty years has been helped by the freedom his producers give him to express himself.
“I’m so lucky I have always had complete autonomy, I have great trust and my producer Tim Dodd doesn’t really know what I’m going to bring him on a Wednesday morning.”
William says he gets terrific feedback from the visual arts community and really responsive reactions which he says is so rewarding because not enough people react.
“We’re too frightened to actually come out and say something. Jenny McLeod when she had her first performance of “Earth and Sky” all her composer colleagues closing their lips and saying nothing, making her wonder if she’d done something terribly wrong. It’s a very New Zealand thing I think.”
He really enjoyed the chance to interview artists. “I’ve always been mystified by what a remix is… so I said to Nathan Haines, sit down and I’m going to play your remix and you’re going to comment on what’s happening and it’s a marvellous five minutes and that’s a gateway to someone understanding this mysterious remix philosophy”.
He likes to snoop and listen to what people are talking about and liking and that’s where you find these treasures you can explore. But ultimately "it’s not worth it if it’s not personal."
