Everyone from world-renowned soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa to Verlaines frontman Graeme Downes believes Dunedin is a breeding ground for great singers. Nigel Benson takes notes.
Back in 2007, when she was still doing interviews, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa told this writer: "There must be something in the Dunedin water.
"You have an amazing number of really wonderful singers coming through from down there. There are a lot of very talented singers and teachers in Dunedin."
Dame Kiri walks the talk.
Dunedin sopranos Ana James and Anna Leese were two of the first recipients of a Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation workshop at the diva's London home.
Late Southern Opera founder, arts patron and 1972 Mobil Song Quest winner Chris Doig also sang the praises of Dunedin before his death.
"Some of New Zealand's best opera voices are coming out of Dunedin. People like Jud Arthur, Martin Snell, Jonathan Lemalu, Suzanne Prain, Anna Leese ... you could go on and on," he said.
"Otago has always been a reservoir of great singers. You are a major training ground for opera singers.
"You've also got some great singing teachers: Judy Bellingham, Isabel Cunningham, Honor McKellar, Vincent Major, Bertha Rawlinson, Donald Munro and, of course, the university influence."
The University of Otago has undoubtedly been a major influence.
"Otago was the first university to offer performance voice studies, with the appointment of Honor McKellar in the early 1970s," University of Otago William Evans senior lecturer in voice Judy Bellingham said.
"Before I came here, my predecessors were Honor McKellar and David Griffiths, who both were great teachers and singers.
"Kiri is correct. We do produce a lot of good singers down here. I think it is because Dunedin is a small city with large city amenities.
"In my role as president of the Dunedin Performing Arts Competitions Society, I see that singers from outside Dunedin are sometimes reluctant to come and compete here, one of the reasons being that they know the local singers are so good."
The quality of teaching in Dunedin was an important ingredient, she said.
"I do think the level of teaching, in the upper echelons of teaching, here is good.
"Both Isabel and I, at the university, have national reputations, which encourages students to want to come and study here."
However, it was a long and gruelling road to train as a top singer, Miss Bellingham said.
"The voice has to be trained from the bottom up, starting from the very beginning.
"The ear needs to be trained to be receptive to new sounds, the student has to be taught the different styles required for singing music by different composers, they need to be taught how to rehearse with an accompanist, performance skills need to be taught and developed, opportunities for performance need to be sourced within Dunedin and then the teacher needs to begin to recommend a suitable place overseas for postgrad study."
Miss Bellingham said opportunities for singers had reduced since her first professional engagement in 1974.
"There are considerably fewer opportunities now. When I started out there were two choirs needing soloists in Christchurch and I went all over the country singing oratorio.
"Now there is much less oratorio, as choirs cannot afford national soloists and, often, not even an orchestra.
"It is possible to have a career within New Zealand without studying overseas, but the tall-poppy syndrome so prevalent in this country would say that one wasn't a good singer if one hadn't been overseas.
"A singer needs to experience the standard and level of performance overseas. To be a good singer in New Zealand is to be a big fish in a very little pond."
Training a young singer took at least two years, university professional practice fellow in voice Isabel Cunningham said.
"Possessing a good voice is merely a prerequisite; the rest is simply hard work. These days, for opera, you also have to have the right 'look'.
"The instrument, however good, has to be worked at slowly and carefully, with voice-building exercises and appropriate repertoire chosen to assist vocal and lingual development.
"This is then followed by many, many more years of perfecting style, language, extending vocal range, ensemble work and stagecraft."
The university also benefits from the presence of world-renown accompanist and Dame Kiri's right-hand man, Prof Terence Dennis.
Verlaines singer-songwriter and University of Otago contemporary music lecturer Dr Graham Downes retains the connection with Dunedin's heyday of the 1980s, when bands like The Verlaines, The Chills, The Clean and were known and respected around the world.
"With growing the student numbers and the staff, there's greater specialisation than at the outset.
"Each new staff member ... has brought expertise in different areas and has brought different ideas from their own professional and teaching backgrounds," Dr Downes said.
Executant lecturer in contemporary music Dr Rob Burns joined the staff in 2002, after a professional career performing with the likes of David Gilmour, Pete Townshend, Isaac Hayes, Eric Burdon, Edwin Starr and Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, of Abba fame.
It is difficult to imagine someone of Dr Burns' experience finding a niche in Dunedin before the establishment of the contemporary music course in 2000.
One of the music department's young musical stars this year was Maddy Parkins-Craig (21), from Perth, who fronts up-and-coming band Hunting Bears.
"I chose to do the course pretty much as soon as I first heard about it.
"I couldn't think of anything better to study at university than contemporary music. I'd also heard they had an impressive set-up and faculty," she said.
"There definitely is a local scene here, with a quick turnover every two or three years, as bands rise and then finish their degrees ...
"Once I've finished my degree I plan to try and make a living off what I've learned, I already teach percussion at the Saturday Morning Music Classes.
"Maybe I'll continue teaching, or move into session work."
Another huge influence has been veteran Dunedin band the Oxo Cubans, which has encouraged, prodded and mentored hundreds of young Dunedin singers over the past 20 years.
Craig Reeves, Marcel Rodeka and Doug Wright have played with everyone from the Bellamy Brothers to Mother Goose and have provided a stage for more than 150 musicians and singers at the Isis Bar and their "Big Night Out" concerts at the Mayfair Theatre.
One such young performer was Dunedin schoolgirl Kylie Price (18), who was a guest artist at the Otago Daily Times "Big Night In" community concert in November and won the Good Morning "Find a Star" national television talent competition.
Price was typical of many up-and-coming young Dunedin singers. She cut her teeth in Dunedin Musical Society productions Dusty and Miss Saigon and honed her stage skill in the Oxo's "Big Night Out" concerts.
Anna Macdonald (now SonyBMG Music signing "Annah Mac") is another who has benefited from the Oxos' guidance.
Southern Sinfonia manager Philippa Harris believes the variety of music in Dunedin offers young vocalists many advantages.
"It is indeed astonishing, the number of high-quality singers that this area produces, considering the population.
"Very recently we've had sopranos Anna Leese, Ana James, Emma Fraser, Deborah Wai Kapohe and Rebecca Ryan, mezzo Clare Barton, tenor Simon O'Neill, baritone and bass Jonathan Lemalu, Jud Arthur and Kawiti Waetford.
"There have always been leading musical figures here and so there's a healthy tradition of good teaching, which produces good young musicians, which in turn produces teachers," she said.
"A factor which helps singers' careers is the very supportive artistic community here and promising artists are able to gain experience in so many different areas of performance, something which I suspect isn't necessarily that easy in other centres," she said.
The sinfonia, Opera Otago, Dunedin Musical Theatre, the City of Dunedin Choir, the Really Authentic Gilbert and Sullivan Society, the RSA Choir, Royal Dunedin Male Choir, Star Singers, Society of Women Musicians and the ODT Aria all gave young singers invaluable first-class experience, she said.
"Students possibly have more opportunity for a really wide variety of high quality performance opportunities than their counterparts in other centres."
Many Dunedin singers and musicians first developed a love of music at Saturday Morning Music Classes, organised by former Bayfield High School music teacher Aart Brusse.
"I think it has always been good here, since the beginning of the 20th century, with the King Edward Tech days being a highlight," Brusse said.
"Music staff from the tech went on to become professors of university music departments; Vernon Griffiths, Frank Calloway, Victor Galway and national music adviser Bill Walden-Mills. Val Drew and Harry Madden used to do the music broadcast to schools from Dunedin."
Dunedin-raised opera singer Chris Fennessy performed the lead role of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables more than 2000 times in London's West End and internationally, before founding Epiphany Productions in Brisbane, Australia.
"I totally agree there's been a wealth of talented singers come from Dunedin," he said.
"I think the music culture in Dunedin, whether it be in opera, musicals, brass bands or pop, has always been very strong and will continue to be.
"I think because of Dunedin's relatively small population and the huge influx of students from all over New Zealand that come into the city each year, it all blends into to a wonderful artistic and cultural melting pot of new talent," he said.
Fennessy knows well the commitment required to reach the top.
"To be become a great or successful singer you must firstly have that natural singing talent that can be crafted and developed over the years.
"You also need determination, a strong work ethic, thick skin for all the knock-backs that you'll encounter over the years and a willingness to open up and to put yourself out of your comfort zone," he said.
"It's such a competitive career option to be involved with.
"There's certainly so many more opportunities overseas, but then there's also a lot more performers going for the same jobs.
"If you stayed in New Zealand, you could become a big fish in a small pond but you wouldn't have the same performance opportunities.
"I think a lot of singers now can create their own opportunities and be proactive.
"Travel is a lot cheaper, technology has increased the opportunity to get yourself out there into the world to showcase your talents."
Fennessy mentored young Dunedin singers with his Summer Theatre School High School Musical at the Mayfair Theatre in 2009.
"Just in that group of 30 kids alone, there were about five or six that I would confidently say, if they decided to go down that track, they could make a career of performing," he said.
"One was Kylie Price ... another would be Katie Mason and Lima Manu. There are many others in Dunedin who have the talent."
Jackie Bristow left Otago in 1994 to pursue her dream of becoming a country music singer-songwriter and has since produced three acclaimed albums and worked with some of country music's biggest stars.
"We do have an unusual amount of great singers, There is a soulful sound in the voices, it has to do with our heritage and mix of cultures.
"Big Irish, Scottish and Maori musical influences all mixed together. Music and singing is very encouraged which also plays a big part," she says.
"I think music has been a huge part of our culture always.
"I often think back about the level of talent that was around when I was a kid, singing at school in church choir and also playing being part of the country music circuit around New Zealand ...
"But it's the isolation and heart of New Zealanders and the music influences we share, I think, that is what sets us apart and makes New Zealand singers special in the world."
