The Big Sing is a dynamic, national group-singing competition for secondary school students.

Festivals are held in June in eleven New Zealand regions and The Big Sing has grown into a major highlight of the secondary school music calendar. This year, more than 8000 young people are taking part in regional festivals nationwide, and the number continues to grow.

Come and hear talented young singers from schools across the region as they compete for a place in the Grand Final held later this year!

Welcome to the Nelson Final of Smokefreerockquest!

Smokefree Rockquest is New Zealand's only nationwide, live, original music, youth event. Founded in 1989 by music teachers Glenn Common and Pete Rainey, who now run Rockquest Promotions full-time out of Nelson, Smokefree Rockquest is a New Zealand institution.

Musical successes from Smokefree Rockquest include Kimbra, Broods, The Good Fun, Midnight Youth, Opshop, Annah Mac, Evermore, Ladyhawke, Minuit, Kids of 88, Die!Die!Die!, Pistol Youth, Bang!Bang!Eche!, Ivy Lies, Cairo Knife Fight, Cut Off Your Hands, Luke Thompson, The Datsuns, Brooke Fraser, Anika Moa, Anna Coddington, The Electric Confectionaires, Steriogram, Aaradhna, Spacifix, The Naked and Famous, Phoenix Foundation, The Feelers, The Black Seeds, Nesian Mystik, Bic Runga, The Checks, Julia Deans, Pine, King Kapisi, Kingston, The Naked and Famous, Autozamm and Elemeno P.

Smokefree Rockquest aims to motivate young musicians to prove their ability and realise the heights they can reach in their music careers, and to encourage their peers to support 100% original New Zealand music.

The Nelson Heats will be at Annesbrook Church on May 13 and will have door sales only.

A 1940's story about the world at home.

Rosie Can Do It is a story about the world at home in New Zealand during World War II. The title and theme for this year's annual SOUNDSTAGE concert is inspired by the iconic image of Rosie the Riveter from the World War II propaganda poster "We Can Do It". As relevant today, as then, the show explores the roles that we play in work and at home and the dreams and expectations that drive us to follow our hearts and fulfil our obligations to ourselves and our community.

Our largely female cast will prove that girls can do anything, especially if you are ready with a pair of gumboots. All singing, all dancing and all inspired by a backdrop of swinging 1940's classics and timeless modern anthems, our cast of many will delight and entertain you and leave you feeling that together we can achieve anything.

Presented by the 2017 students of SOUNDSTAGE Nelson and written and complied by Jane Winter.

SOUNDSTAGE music and performing arts school has been offering professional music and performing arts tuition to the talent of Nelson for the last 10 years.

Renowned Kiwi sportsman John Wright shows us another side as he launches his album Red Skies right here in Motueka.

On the road as an international cricket coach you clock up hotel hours! John preferred to pick up his guitar and write songs rather than do crosswords. Finally those songs and stories have made their way onto an album recorded over two years with Sou'Westers Liam Ryan and Dean Hetherington.

John will perform with The Sou'Westers including third member Aly Cook who is enjoying a solo career with three Number 1 Country Radio hits in Australia in the last year.

Hear songs from Red Skies performed live for the first time in concert and see the premiere of John's music video Drivin' Into Mot featuring wonderful shots of Motueka Valley and township.

The pre-concert function will be at the Senior Citizens Hall from 6:30pm on. This includes Meet & Greet and album signing with John, refreshments and finger food, followed by the concert in Motueka Hall.

"There's a big, vivacious, steel-belt of a sound Imani gets when playing at the top of its lungs that is most appealing" - Peter Dobrin, The Philadelphia Inquirer

The season concludes with fun, fire and flair thanks to the Imani Winds. Their mission is to use collaboration, outreach, and new commissions to bridge diverse musical tradition, including America, Latin American, and Africa.

Celebrated for the 'sultry sophistication' of their performances, Imani Winds are truly an ensemble for our time: they are young, outstandingly talented musicians whose reputation for musical innovation is growing all over the world.

Their unique programme reflects their commitment to the traditional and the new: Rimsky-Korsakov, Piazzolla and Ravel are surrounded by the flamboyant, genre-disrupting and entertaining music by less well-known Latin composers. And they'll be presenting a new work by our very own Natalie Hunt.

Beethoven's ten Sonatas for Violin and Piano form a transcendent, transformative monument of the duo sonata repertoire: they present a formidable, unique challenge to violinists and pianists.

Bella Hristova is known for the power and lyrical beauty of her sound, a violinist perfectly suited to the huge technical and emotional demands of Beethoven's Sonatas. Michael Houstoun's recent performances of Beethoven's complete Piano Sonatas met with huge acclaim for fluency and appreciation of Beethoven's wit, as well as the moments of profound desolation.

Hristova and Houstoun's collaboration in our Beethoven Mini-Festivals will be a landmark musical event of 2017.

Programme:
Sonata No. 3 in E-flat Major, op 12, no. 3
Sonata No. 8 in G Major, op 30, no. 3
Sonata No. 2 in A Major, op. 12, no. 2
Sonata No. 7 in C Minor, op 30, no. 2

"You could see the joy in the performers' faces and movements as much as you could hear it in the playing." - The New York Times

Juilliard415 represent the best-of-the-best early-music ensemble from the Julliard School, with a reputation for combining youthful energy with poise, precision, and a luminous sound. For this New Zealand tour, J415 join forces with maestro Masaaki Suzuki, hugely esteemed for his performances and recordings of Bach.

The programme concentrates on Bach and Handel, the giants of the baroque era. It will give audiences a tantalising taste of Bach's work, and guarantees an evening of luminous, vital performances.

There will be a prelude event before the concert. Check http://www.chambermusic.co.nz for more updates.

Renowned for her interpretations of French piano repertoire - full of ‘evanescent colours and shimmering, elusive light’ - British pianist Kathryn Stott will perform recitals in New Plymouth and Napier, before joining the New Zealand String Quartet for solo and chamber music.

Debussy’s L'Isle joyeuse - inspired by Watteau’s enigmatic painting L’Embarquement pour Cythère - is at the centre of Kathryn’s recitals, alongside Dutilleux’s Piano Sonata: this is a rare opportunity to hear these ravishing works programmed together.

A Member of NZSQ will lead a discussion with Kathryn Stott at 4:15pm
- free entry -

Take Me Home - The Music & Life of John Denver returns to New Zealand following the astounding success of the 2016 tour of Australia. Singer Bevan Gardiner, accompanied by international musicians perform all the John Denver songs with such accuracy and feeling that if you close your eyes you will be effortlessly transported to the era of John Denver. The show includes exclusive film footage of John Denver through his career, his personal life and his love for the environment.

Take Me Home is authorised and by arrangement with John Denver management.

Australian audiences experienced this show in 2016 and witnessed the rising talent Bevan Gardiner. Originally Gardiner debuted in Australia when he was the support act for American country singer Charley Pride. People rushed to buy his CD commenting how much he sounded like John Denver. Even Pride was impressed: "Bevan is amazing. He sounds just like John Denver", the country singer said at the time.

Two shows only - not to be missed!

Teapot Summer School presents its 17th concert ' Singing for Joy' at Old St. John's Nelson on Sunday 22 January at 2pm. Ben Parry, director of The National Youth Choirs of Great Britain, is the conductor.

The program includes Requiem by Faure, the mood being one of peacefulness and serenity. Rejoice in the Lamb by Benjamin Britten, who movingly encapsulates the poem's half-mad and delightfully religious spirit. Seven Goodly Reasons to Sing by Ben Parry, " and if, at last, your voice take wing, this noisy world may hear the song you sing".

Teapot Summer School has over its 17 years attracted singers from all over NZ  who come together for a week of an intensive singing course directed by highly respected overseas conductors, including Sir David Willcocks, Brian Kay and Ebbe Munk.