New Award Will Help New Zealand Music Standards

New Award Will Help New Zealand Music Standards

Karen Grylls ONZM, Artistic Director of Choir Aotearoa New Zealand, has been selected as a 2011 NZ-UK Link Foundation Discretionary Award winner. She is Associate Professor of Music at Auckland University and one of New Zealand’s most experienced and distinguished choral educators. She is heading for England next month to study current best practice in UK choral education, helped financially by the NZ-UK Link Foundation.

She is going to explore the choral education programmes of Ex Cathedra in Birmingham and other institutions involved in the training of singers, particularly at the start of their careers.

Karen Grylls explained “As we aspire to create a professional profile for Voices NZ Chamber Choir, it is very clear that choral education will play a large part. It is increasingly the responsibility of the choirs themselves to create environments where singing is the means by which musical skills are taught.

This visit will help me to start creating an international benchmark which we can use to measure our own progress.

I am very grateful for the support provided by the NZ-UK link Foundation. This visit will greatly assist future initiatives for choral education in New Zealand both through the choirs with which I am involved and through the Association of Choral Directors which has just been formed inside the NZ Choral Federation.’’

NZ-UK Link Foundation’s Chairman, Mark Horton, said “Our purpose is to foster educational and cultural exchanges between the two countries so each can learn from the other. Karen has exceptional experience as a choral educator and this project will help her and the New Zealand musicians she inspires.’’

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