Manager, NZ Secondary Students’ Choir

Wellington based

(part-time 0.6)

 If you like variety, travel, and working in small teams for something utterly beautiful, read on!

After nearly 13 years in this job, our staff member has decided to change roles within our organisation. We are looking for a new team member to manage all activities of the iconic New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir.

We are working out of a groovy office in the Wellington Central delivering the management of our three internationally-awarded national choirs (New Zealand Youth Choirs, Voices New Zealand and NZSSC).

Your role would be to manage the logistic preparation and planning of all NZSSC’s activities, travel arrangements, scheduling and administration. You would also tour-manage these choirs within New Zealand and occasionally overseas and lead the touring party and artists on the road. If you like good systems, have attention to detail and work well with creative people, this job could be yours. Work experience with secondary school aged teenagers highly preferred!

This is a fantastic opportunity to work for an iconic national organisation and grow as an arts manager in New Zealand’s vibrant creative sector.

You can find more info about this role in this JOB SCOPE

Get in touch now or send your application to joinus@choirsnz.co.nz no later than Wednesday 19 January 2022.

We had a wonderful tour down south to Christchurch and the West Coast back in April, and our thanks to everyone who made it happen. We did get rained on a little, but luckily singing isn’t an outside sport! Our three public concerts were packed, and we had the eyes of the world on us at South New Brighton Primary School, when a video of our performance there went viral and received over 280,000 views from a truly global audience. We received comments from Ireland, USA, Newfoundland, UK, Scotland, Germany, Belgium, Australia, Brazil, the Bahamas, Poland, France, Iceland, Netherlands, Philippines, South Africa and more!

Follow the link below for a recap video of the tour, with footage from our school visits, pop-up performances and concerts.

Read more here

NZYC’s choir leaders are senior positions of responsibility in the choir who are there to assist, support and unite the choir both musically and pastorally – and they’re always there to lend a hand to the staff while on tour.

 

What are you watching, eating and listening to right now?

Bianca: Eating chicken and cranberry pizza, listening to the Jersey Boys soundtrack, and keeping a watchful eye out for a courier delivery!

Peter: Watching Invincible and Midnight Diner. Eating a lot of homemade egg sandwiches at uni. Currently jamming out to The Days pt.2 by my incredibly talented friend (and NZYC alumnus) Jack Page.
(more…)

David Squire was a member of NZYC from 1985-1991 and a founding member of Voices NZ in 1998 before he became NZYC Music Director in 2011 (the first alumnus conductor of the choir); Michael Stewart has been a member of both NZYC and Voices NZ and became NZYC Deputy Music Director in 2017; and Dr Morag Atchison currently sings with Voices NZ and became Vocal Consultant to NZYC in 2008!

(more…)

The Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand Trust governs three national choirs with great domestic and international reputations – NZ Secondary Students’ Choir https://www.nzsschoir.com/, NZ Youth Choir https://www.nzyouthchoir.com/ and Voices NZ https://www.voicesnz.com/. The associated Choirs Aotearoa Foundation Trust manages an endowment fund to provide long term financial support to the charitable activities of the Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand Trust.

We are looking for new Trustees with specific skills for the Choirs Aotearoa Foundation Trust.

The Foundation has been well established with a simple structure and a modest investment base. We are looking for people to help take things forward with new ideas on how we might grow the fund to provide for the long term security of the choirs as well as providing the support to enable broad access and participation in our national choirs. We may also be looking for someone to chair the Foundation Trust in the future.

We are looking for skills in the areas of investment management, marketing and/or communications and community networks to oversee and grow the current invested funds, through bequests and donations.

We’d love to hear from you and invite you to send your governance CV to canztrustees@gmail.com by 18 June 2021.

If you have questions you can contact the current CANZ Chair at canztrustees@gmail.com.

We’re heading South

Our national choir of 18-25 year olds will perform in Greymouth, Westport and Christchurch as part of their 2021 South Island tour. Music Director David Squire is “excited to visit Christchurch for the first time since 2014, and especially the West Coast, where we haven’t sung in more than a decade. The new choir is in fine form and we look forward to sharing a range of stunning music, both well-known and rare.”
-NZ Choirs Team

 

Starts: 12 April

Duration: 2 months (fixed-term); can be full-time or part-time

Based in Wellington, Downtown office

A rare opportunity to work with an iconic national music organisation during one of their tours. The job scope includes:

· Telling the story: creating content and providing communications for social media channels and databases for our three national choirs, NZ Secondary Students’ Choir, NZ Youth Choir and VOICES New Zealand chamber Choir.

· Cover the action: content creation (i.e. Filming and photography) of the New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir during their concerts and rehearsals in Wellington.

· Strategise new ideas: opportunity to develop strategies for other social media platforms

· Proof’s in the pudding: Checking key social media metrics for audience engagement

Would suit a graduate in marketing/comms, someone who is a natural writer and is good with social media, tech savvy and enjoys listening to great music making!

You will be supported by a highly experienced arts management team in a great environment, positivity plus!

Send us your CV and cover letter now to joinus@choirsnz.co.nz

 

Nzyouthchoir.com

Nzsschoir.com

Voicesnz.com

Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand (CANZ) continues to thrive and we are looking for new Trustees with specific skills. We’d love to hear from you and invite you to send your governance CV to canztrustees@gmail.com by 7 August 2020. If you have questions you can contact the current CANZ Chair at this email address or by text 027 278 6050.

The Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand Trust governs three national choirs with great domestic and international reputations – NZ Secondary Students ChoirNZ Youth Choir and Voices NZ. We work under the leadership of the internationally renowned Dr Karen Grylls as Artistic Director.

The Trust is a dynamic organisation which aspires to and achieves artistic excellence while developing the artists and contributing to  the place of New Zealand contemporary vocal music with commissions and performances of New Zealand works. We have excellent working relationships with our major funding organisational partners – Creative New Zealand, Infratil and NZ Community Trust – and enjoy the generous sponsorship and donor relationships with a wide variety of committed individuals. Our highly capable management team is led by Chief Executive, Arne Herrmann, and they complement the top artistic talent we attract.

We would like to hear from people who appreciate excellence in artistic performance and the creative arts, and have the governance skills to make a difference for our top quality endeavours.  The Trustees have a strong governance focus, currently meeting 5 times a year, generally online for a couple of hours, with one more strategically focussed face to face meeting for around half a day.

CANZ Trust Board

We have reviewed our governance skill mix and, in the context of the direction we want to take, we   are looking for a managed transition towards inclusion of the following skills on the Trust Board.

  1. capability and experience in one or more members to support the embedding of CANZ’s approach to partnering with Māori that is commensurate with our role as a national organisation, and builds on the many good things already acknowledged as happening in this area
  2. high end / strategic finance and business thinking – somebody who has contemporary experience of formal reporting & audit practices, supporting the CE to work with the management accountant and supporting the Board’s strategic conversations
  3. business or political networks – someone who has networks and connections which may help us open doors otherwise inaccessible to us to support the CE turn these into actionable opportunities

CANZ Foundation Trust Board

We are also looking for new members for the Choirs Aotearoa Foundation Trust Board, again for a managed transition from the establishment members, who have achieved the organisation’s initial goals.

We are looking for skills in the areas of investment management, marketing and communications to oversee and grow the current invested funds, through bequests and donations.

The Foundation Trustees currently meet on an as required basis; as it enters its next stage of maturity, the meeting frequency and patterns may change as the Trustees see fit. The CANZ management team provides administrative support for the Foundation.

Hello from the other side!

Kia ora whānau

Hoping this newsletter find you all safe and well, and for those in NZ that Level 2 has brought a chance to return to some normality.  Here at Choirs NZ we worked from home throughout lockdown to keep the fires burning. In this newsletter we’re farewelling our 2017-2019 NZ Youth Choir and introducing the next cycle, 2020-2022!

Fingers crossed we can bring our new choir together for the first time in July. Whether we have a concert or not, you’ll be able to keep up with our activities via our website and facebook page. More details on that to come, stay tuned.

Until then keep well and keep singing!

– The Choirs NZ team

Today’s announcement by the government to limit indoor events to 100 people means that most of our activities will be impacted. These restrictions will most certainly be in place during April when we had planned several concerts. Some of these concerts have already been cancelled and more cancellations will follow. This is disappointing news for singers and audiences alike and will affect many professional artists, contractors, suppliers and their whānau. But these are unprecedented circumstances and we are fully committed to keep our people safe and healthy.

At the same time, we don’t want to stop our music-making, developing our singers and bringing music to you. We will now put our thinking caps on and consider new ways to create and share our music going forward.

We will keep you posted on our website and facebook pages about our work and music.

Until then stay safe and well, we are grateful for your support.

Noho ora mai 🌱