Standing Room Only for Sunday 10 November 2019

 

12:35 The World is Coming to Sing Here - John Rosser

In the world of choral music its a big deal. Next July will see thousands of choral music performers and producers from around the world land in Auckland for the 12th World Symposium of Choral Music.

For lovers of the power of the human voice - which is pretty much all of us, certainly on this show! - this is a highly anticipated event. But there's more to it.  The theme will be "People and the Land - He Tangata He Whenua".  As you'd expect, it's about the connection between music and the people who create it, but also the whole idea of indigenous music and ownership.

We're joined by the Artistic Director of the Symposium and previous Chair of the New Zealand Choral Federation, John Rosser. 

Twenty four of the world’s best choirs, over 40 distinguished speakers on choral music and thousands of delegates will descend on Auckland. Its a major international arts festival which also serves as a "global choral congress."

John says that an international Artistic Committee reviewed an unprecedented number of 360 choir and presenter applications from more than 50 countries around the world to produce the final line-up of choirs and presenters.

“No other Symposium, since the event began in 1987, has had such a strong response,” he says.

 

12:45 A Nuanced Love Story in an Irish pub-  Playwright Kieran Craft

Gay love stories used to have certain familiar story arcs.  They might be set in the past, crusading for law changes.  Or they may involve a death due to AIDS. But for a new generation those stories are changing. Young Auckland playwright Kieran Craft is keen to bring more nuance to gay stories.  

Four Nights In The Green Barrow Pub is set to premiere on Wellington's Cuba Street at Irish alehouse JJ Murphy's. 

It's the latest production from the Red Scare company who've been producing original theatre in Wellington now for six years. Simon Morris spoke to the award-winning playwright and we also here a brief excerpt from the play, from one of the production's actors Hilary Norris.

The play was shortlisted for the Adam New Zealand Play Award and Runner Up for Playmarket’s b4 25 competition.  The Green Barrow Pub is something of a departure - Kieran typically writes musicals for his company Back and Forth Productions.  The production runs 14 to 23 November.

 

1:10 At The Movies

Simon Morris looks at the latest examples of a very strong year for New Zealand films - one from our most popular film-maker, one featuring our biggest star actor, a documentary about our most legendary adventurer, and one from the Wairarapa's most famous new arrival.

 

1:33  Bright Futures for Dancers Joshua Faleatua and Tyler Carney 

What are the career options for talented young dancers these days?  Two such talents Joshua Faleatua and Tyler Carney are in the midst of finding out. The pair for the last three years have been dancing with New Zealand contemporary dance company Footnote, but this month that comes to an end. 

So what next? For both, careers beckon overseas. While Joshua has recently been dancing with Australian company Chunky Move, Tyler has a role in Mam, the work of celebrated Irish choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan and his new company Teac Damsa, which has just been announced as part of the New Zealand Festival in February.  Mark Amery caught up with the pair as they wrapped up a national tour with Footnote of Ross McCormack's new work The Clearing. 

 

1:50  School Students Take on the Rights of Prostitutes

Four students at St Oran's College in Lower Hutt who have devised a short play about prostitution law reform, have been invited to perform the work by the New Zealand Prostitutes' Collective at an upcoming national conference.  

The Presbyterian school students interviewed sex workers' rights activist Dame Catherine Healey for the work, as part of a theatre project about protests. Just before they left school on study leave, Lynn Freeman went to the school to meet them and their teacher Helen Jones.  They were all proud and excited about being invited to perform the work, which left Dame Catherine Healey in tears when she first saw it.

We hear from from Emma, Tyler, Phoebe and McKenzie who'll be performing their devised work at the New Zealand Sexual Health Conference at the James Cook Hotel, Wellington later this week.

 

2:06 The Laugh Track - James Mustapic

James' comedy picks he plays with Simon Morris today are Sara Pascoe, Rhys Nicholson, Becky Lucas, Simon Amstell and Sindhu Vee.
 

James Mustapic is known for his web series Shorty Street Scandal and Repressed Memories). He's known for a satirical, dry style that "makes cutting observations which come in surprising contrast to his soft-spoken presence". He's also known for sharing unapologetic stories of people who have done him wrong over the years. He was a 2019 Billy T Nominee and the winner of the Best Newcomer Award at the 2018 NZ International Comedy Festival.

 

2.25 Camera on Community - Visual Artist Chevron Hassett

Māori are used to having their experience captured by others. Think of the photographs of Ans Westra and Marti Friedlander. But Chevron Hassett is a young Māori artist taking the camera into his own hands to talk about the experiences of young urban Māori. Chevron hails from Naenae in Wellington, and Naenae is the subject of Home is Where my heart will rest, his exhibition at Toi Pōneke in Wellington.

But that's not all, Chevron is just back from Sydney where he has been talking to Māori living there about their experiences for an exhibition, Kōhanga at First Draft Gallery. Māori have a long and rich history win Sydney. 200 years ago, Māori frequently travelled across the Tasman Sea to engage in trade and labour and Maori have had continuous roots there since. Today close to 40,000 Maori live in new South Wales, 20,000 in Sydney.

Chevron  is one of three Māori artists showing new work in Strands at the Dowse Art Museum talking to their whakapapa. Chevron is of Ngāti Porou, Rongomaiwahine, Ngāti Kahungunu and Pakeha descent and has been travelling back to the East Coast for several years to create this very personal project about his roots. 

Chevron also shortly also has images of young people from Naenae displayed on buses, travelling the route from the suburb to Wellington city. Where once as a teenager Chevron tagged those buses illegally, now he's negotiating to represent his friends and his suburb in new ways through funded public art. For Chevron photography is a way to extend the practice of whanaungatanga, extending an oral practice into still and moving images.

 Home is where my heart will rest opens on 16 November and Strands 29 November. 

 

2.35 On Being a Drongo - Author Ian Richards

Drongo. Its Australiasian slang you don't hear much these days.  A drongo: an idiot, a no-hoper. The name apparently derives from an Australian racehorse in the 1920's who showed much promise but never won a race... But Drongo is also the rather apt title of the second novel of writer and biographer, Ian Richards

The drongo in question is Andrew Ingle, an 18 year old, self-described blank canvas - who in this Kiwi road novel bludges rides around the country meeting all sorts of characters, set on being a writer, but most of all on losing his virginity. 

Mark Amery spoke to Ian in Japan where he is an Associate Professor of English literature at Osaka City University. Ian's first book Everyday Life in Paradise was a finalist in the 1991 Heinemann Reed Award for best book of fiction. His biography To Bed at Noon: The Life and Art of Maurice Duggan (Auckland University Press, 1997) was nominated for the Montana Best Book Award. Richards’ stories have been broadcast on Radio New Zealand and appeared in numerous magazines including Landfall, the NZ Listener and North and South. Richards was born and raised in Palmerston North and received his PhD in English from Massey University.   

We start with a taste of our drongo, read for us by Richard Scott.

Drongo: A Kiwi Road Novel is published by Atuanui Press and out in bookshops now.

 

2:49 The Labour of Burying Sculpture as Performance - Trent Hiles

Digging narrow trenches for eight hours a day on Banks Peninsula, then burying three lovingly carved wooden sculptures, wrapped in traditional baskets,and leaving them there, is the idea behind Lyttleton artist Trent Hiles' latest project Labour of Life [The Art of Work].  

He's been creating this combined sculpture installation and performance for the Sculpture on the Peninsula event all this week on Banks Peninsula. Sculpture on the Peninsula is on at Loudon Farm this weekend.

 

3:06 Drama at 3 -  It's A Broken Heart in a Warzone

This week's Drama is a winning play from the BBC World Service/British Council International Playwriting Competition. We first played It's A Broken Heart in a Warzone by Aziz-H in February but we reprise it this week because firstly, its great, and secondly applications for next year's international radio playwriting competition are now open. The play is a dark comedy in an un-named war zone. The time is now. 'Aziz-H' is a pseudonym for the winning writer, who lives in Yemen. 
 

Music played in this show

Artist: The Incredible String Band
Song: A Very Cellular Song
Composer: Unknown
Album: The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter
Label: Elektra
Played at: 12.30pm

Artist: Various
Song: Carmina Burana 
Composer: Carl Orff
Album: Carmina Burana 
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Played at: 12.35pm

Artist: Pentatonix
Song: Stars
Composer: Unknown
Album: Finding Neverland
Label: RCA
Played at: 12.57pm

Artist: Choir Of St. Mary's Cathedral Auckland
Song: The New Zealand Weather Forecast
Composer: Various
Album: n/a
Label: Kiwi
Played at: 1.05pm

Artist: Edith Piaf
Song: The Three Bells
Composer: Reisfeld, J. Villard
Album: The Best of Edith Piaf
Label: Capitol
Played at: 1.40pm

Artist: Elbow
Song: One day like this
Composer: Elbow 
Album: The Seldom Seen Kid
Label: Fiction Records
Played at: 1.57pm

Artist: Portsmouth Sinfonia
Song: Hallelujah
Composer: Handel
Album: Hallelujah
Label: Transatlantic Records
Played at: 2.05pm

Artist: Aretha Franklin
Song: Climbing Higher Mountains
Composer: Unknown
Album: Amazing Grace: The Complete Recordings
Label: Rhino
Played at: 2.35pm

Artist: Dudley Benson
Song: Tui
Composer: Hirini Melbourne
Album: Forest: Songs By Hirini Melbourne
Label: Golden Retriever Records Ltd ‎
Played at: 2.57pm

Artist: Beach Boys
Song: Our Prayer
Composer: Brian Wilson
Album: Smile
Label: Brother Records
Played at: 3.05pm

Artist: Keala Settle & The Greatest Showman Ensemble
Song: This is Me
Composer: John Debney and Joseph Trapanese 

Album: The Greatest Showman
Label: Atlantic 
Played at: .3.57pm