Registered Music Teachers of NZ Annual Conference speech
President Sharon Martin;
IRMT Council Members and Registrar Roger Lloyd;
Waikato Branch Chairman and Conference Convenor, Lisa Williamson;
invited guests, conference presenters and registered music teachers from throughout New Zealand.
Thank you for your warm welcome and for according me the honour of opening your conference this evening.
It's my great pleasure to welcome you all to the beautiful city of Hamilton, although I'm sorry that some of you from more southern parts saw fit to bring your weather with you… Here in the Waikato we've been having a wonderful summer and today's rain was desperately needed, so perhaps I should thank you and - in keeping with your reason for being here - note that the "raindrops [that] keep falling on our heads" have been music to the ears for our local producers and gardeners.
To those southerners who have endured a lousy summer and a truly awful weekend, may I inform you that my Parliamentary secretary tells me that since mid-morning today it has been a really beautiful day in Wellington!
MPs always enjoy events of this nature and welcoming visitors to their electorates, but I'm especially pleased to greet members and supporters of the Institute of Registered Music Teachers of New Zealand and to say how delighted we are to be hosting your "Flow of Music" Conference, because your passion is dear to my heart also.
Like so many primary school children in New Zealand, as a youngster I was lucky enough to receive both guitar and piano lessons from itinerant music teachers. To my eternal regret, I lacked the maturity and self-discipline to do the hard work necessary to become accomplished in those disciplines. (Perhaps I also lacked the talent, although I firmly believe that most children have musical ability but many lack the opportunities that I had to develop that talent.)
I sang in school choirs for many years and retain a deep love of choral music to this day. And I witnessed dedicated Directors of Music and other classroom music teachers beavering away, often in unsuitable teaching spaces, with oversized classes and inadequate resources, somehow achieving wonderful results against all the odds!
In later years I became a secondary teacher and subsequently a deputy principal. In that capacity I learned that the role of a visiting music teacher is a demanding and frequently disrupted one that would try the patience of a saint.
Many of you who are visiting music teachers will have regularly encountered unannounced changes to the daily routines that throw your own timetables into disarray; you will have endured hostility from tyrannical Philistines who resent children being removed from their classes to attend music lessons; you will have battled to achieve performance opportunities for your pupils; and you will have torn your hair out at parents who expect miracles while paying peanuts, and at children who neglect their practice, neglect their instruments, and often neglect their manners and personal hygiene…
Yet you persevere, and you believe, and you inspire. So I know that generations of New Zealanders share my genuine appreciation of your gifts, your commitment and your incalculable contribution to the musical heritage of our country. A simple "thank you" seems totally inadequate - but I offer it sincerely.
Prior to my election to Parliament I served as Chief Executive of the Music and Art Waikato Trust, which is better known locally as Arts Waikato. With my colleagues I helped promote visual and performing arts throughout our trust's region, which stretches from the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula to the Ruapehu District.
While in that role I also helped to create, and subsequently chaired, the Central North Island Regional Orchestra Steering Committee, which is campaigning for the establishment of New Zealand's fifth professional regional orchestra.
Although the demands of my current role do not enable me to stay as close to the action as I would like to be, I am still co-chair of that committee, and it remains a burning ambition of mine to see our large and talented region boast a world class orchestra to take its place alongside the Vector Wellington Orchestra, Southern Sinfonia, Christchurch Symphony Orchestra and the Auckland Philharmomia.
The Waikato/Bay of Plenty is one of the most rapidly developing regions in the country with a buoyant economy. However, Hamilton - one of the ‘five main centres’ in New Zealand - is the only city with a university Music Department not to have its own, partly central government and local body funded, professional regional orchestra.
Hamilton has long boasted a community orchestral society known as the Waikato Orchestral Society and its orchestra is the Trust Waikato Symphony Orchestra.
TWSO has nurtured and show-cased local instrumentalists for six decades, and almost every one of its younger members owes his or her development and success to the enthusiasm, dedication, patience and expertise of the past and present members of your Institute - teachers such as yourselves to whom our community is deeply indebted.
The Opus Chamber Ensemble started in 1991 and has subsequently become the Opus Chamber Orchestra. Although centred in Hamilton, its focus has always been to provide a regular concert series in the Bay of Plenty as well as the Waikato.
Opus Orchestra regularly combines with our excellent Hamilton Civic Choir, and I am delighted to hear that you will have an opportunity later this week to enjoy the civic choir's talents.
An indication of the quality of Opus Orchestra is found in the fact that its musical director and principal conductor is the CEO of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Dr Peter Walls, and its current concertmaster is Dr Lara Hall of the University of Waikato.
I note that Lara is one of the facilitators of the master classes that you have scheduled into your conference programme this week, and that you will be entertained by Opus Orchestra on Thursday evening. Unfortunately I have to be in Wellington on Thursday or you might have found that you were sick of the sight of me by the end of this week!
I'd like to acknowledge the hard work and efficiency of your conference registrar, Meliha Tsen. Not only did she invite me to perform this pleasant task more than 13 months ago, but she appears to have been most helpful in providing conference information and attending to various requests, and I am sure you have all appreciated her efforts, along with those of the conference convenor, Lisa Williamson, and her committee. Together they have done a sterling job.
There is much that I would like to tell you about the high standard of music education and performance in our local schools, tertiary institutions, churches, bands and so on. Suffice it to say that musical activity has always been very strong in the central North Island. Music teaching of all types has attracted national recognition and there is now a highly regarded Department of Music here at the University of Waikato which recently achieved the leading position in the field of research in New Zealand.
So, as Lisa Williamson noted in the September issue of your attractive and informational journal, the WEL Academy of Performing Arts, situated here on our university's campus, is the ideal venue for your annual conference.
The range of activities and performances that await you, combined with the quality of the contributors to your seminars and workshops, convinces me that your time in Hamilton will be profitable and rewarding for you personally and for all those whom you will teach and nurture in the years ahead.
Looking at the well-organised programme of events ahead of you, I'm confident that you will be challenged, stimulated and uplifted over the next four days in equal measure.
Thank you again for your kind invitation: I wish you a wonderful week and I have great pleasure in declaring the 2010 Institute of Registered Music Teachers' conference open.
