NZ music’s technical specialists honoured

NZ music’s technical specialists honoured

New Zealand music’s specialists have been honoured with technical awards at an event in Auckland that included the announcement of the finalists for The 2003 New Zealand Music Awards.

The technical awards have been revealed prior to the awards night scheduled for April 30. According to the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ), this is to provide the finalists and winners “with their very own Tuis spotlight”.

There are five awards in technical categories.

Best Music Video for 2002 has been won by Joe Lonie and Goodshirt for the video from the single Sophie from the ‘Good’ album. The track was the only New Zealand single to reach number one in 2002 and it helped push the album to Platinum status.

Other finalists in the Best Video category were Chris Graham and Bic Runga for ‘Something Good’ and Ché Fu for Misty Frequencies.

The New Zealand Music Radio Programmer of the Year for 2002 is Andi Dawkins from More FM in Christchurch. Other finalists were Andrew Szusterman from Channel Z, John Budge from Classic Hits and Mai FM’s Manu Taylor.

New Zealand’s Producer of the Year was Bic Runga for her self-produced album, ‘Beautiful Collision’. The album was released in New Zealand in July and later in Australia and the USA.

Other finalists for Producer of the Year were Geoffery Maddock for the Goldenhorse album Riverhead and Peter Wadams for Big Things by P Money.

Kiwi music’s Engineer of the Year is in fact two people, Clint Murphy and Dave Rhodes for Blindspott’s debut album, Blindspott.

The overall sound of the album is a blend of hip-hop and metal. Murphy, the recording engineer and Rhodes, who mixed the album, says they set out to make a big ‘phat’ international sound using a combination of the best vintage and modern technology.

The other three finalists were Jeremy Geor for Carbon-50Hz, Barbara Griffin for Annie Crummer’s Love not War and Simon Holloway and Shane Mason for K’Lee.

In the Best Cover Design category, the Tui has gone to Campbell Hooper-Johnson for Flock: The Best of the Mutton Birds. Other finalists were Damian Alexander and Blindspott for Blindspott and Spencer Levine fro Trade Secrets.

RIANZ Music Awards spokesperson Mark Ashbridge says it’s important for the technical people to be recognised.

“2002 was a big year for New Zealand music and we feel a big part of the momentum has been the creative role video and production play in bringing top music to the people.

“We decided this year to recognise these contributions in a ceremony separate to the awards night so we could put the spotlight on their achievements in an appropriate manner.”

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