Diccon Sim is a partner in Dunedin law firm, Gallaway Cook Allan. He studied Philosophy and Law at the University of Otago and also holds a Bachelor of Civil Law degree from Oxford University.
He was a member of the New Zealand Youth Choir from 1983 to 1988, and a member of its management committee during that time. A longstanding member of Dunedin’s St Paul’s Cathedral Choir, he has also sung as a tenor Vicar Choral in the choir of Wells Cathedral, and was a member of Schola Cantorum of Oxford during his postgraduate studies.
Diccon serves on the Boards of Dunedin’s Fortune Theatre and Selwyn College as well as the Boards of a number of trusts in the disability sector. He is also Chancellor of the Anglican Diocese of Dunedin and a Proprietor of St Hilda’s Collegiate School.
Diccon joined the trust in May 2015 and has been Choirs Aotearoa’s Honorary Solicitor for a number of years.
Diana Cable has 24 years’ experience in the arts sector. After 4 years as an Industrial Relations Officer in the State Services Commission, Diana turned to the arts in 1986. One year managing Wellington City Opera was followed by 10 years as a Music Producer at Radio New Zealand Concert. She then worked as an independent producer for 7 years and was appointed as Artistic Administrator of the New Zealand International Arts Festival in 2003, after working for the Festival on a contract basis from 1997.
Having managed the Lexus Song Quest (formerly Mobil) since 1990, Diana also has considerable experience working with young singers.
Diana is a member of the Board of Trustees of Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand and Chair of its Artistic Advisory Group, a member of the Wellington Creative Communities grants committee and a Past President of the New Zealand Opera Society.
Diana is an alumnus of the New Zealand Youth Choir
Andrea Gray was appointed Chair of Choirs Aotearoa NZ Trust in April 2015. She has worked in the public and private sector in roles including knowledge and information management, introduction of web services to support business service delivery and relationship management. She is currently Deputy Chief Executive at NZQA and leads the Digital Assessment Transformation. She has a BMus, BA (Linguistics) and an MA (Library & Information Studies).
She spent many years enjoying supporting her children in their musical endeavours, including a great deal of choral work at their respective secondary schools. This rekindled her desire to sing and she has been a member of the Orpheus Choir of Wellington and, intermittently, the Chorale ensemble of the Wellington Cathedral of St Paul since 2006.
After joining the board in 2014, Andrea became Chair of Choirs Aotearoa NZ Trust in April 2015 .
Arne Herrmann has worked for over 20 years in Arts and Festival Management in New Zealand.
He held senior management positions at New Zealand Festival, Auckland Arts Festival, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, UNITEC School of Performing and Screen Arts and the contemporary dance company The Human Garden. Arne was the Festival Director of the National Jazz Festival and Garden&ArtFest in Tauranga. His work also included the Lexus SongQuest, Michael Hill International Violin Competition, Wellington Jazz Festival and National Youth Jazz Competition.
As freelance consultant Arne’s clients included the New Zealand Opera, Indian Ink Theatre, Te Matatini Kapa Haka Festival and the Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival.
Arne Herrmann took up the role as Chief Executive of Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand in May 2016.
DMA, DipRAM, PGDip(Perf), BMus(Hons), LRAM
Morag Atchison has firmly established herself as one of New Zealand’s leading sopranos. She studied at the University of Auckland and Royal Academy of Music (London), and was a finalist in the Kathleen Ferrier and Royal Over-Seas League Competitions. She has performed operatic roles including Berta, The Barber of Seville (NZ Opera) Helmwige, Die Walküre (NZSO); Lady-in-waiting, Verdi’s Macbeth; First Lady, Magic Flute (NBR NZ Opera); Fourth Maid, Strauss’ Elektra (APO); Blumenmädchen, Parsifal (NZSO); Annina, La traviata (English Touring Opera) and Sandrina, La Finta Giardiniera (Opera Unleashed, Hamilton Festival). Morag’s concert engagements include performances of the Britten War Requiem (CSO); Mozart Requiem (Voices NZ and Wellington Sinfonia); Handel’s Messiah (VNZ and WS; Auckland Choral); Verdi Requiem (Bach Musica); Tippett’s A Child of our Time with the NZYC and NZSO-NYO; and Beethoven’s Ah! perfido (APO and Manukau Symphony). In 2018 Morag travelled to England, France, Germany, and Spain as part of Voices New Zealand’s European tour and was a soloist on the soundtrack for the major motion-picture Mortal Engines. This year Morag sang the role of Berta in NZ Opera’s season of The Barber of Seville to great acclaim.
Morag is Senior Lecturer in Voice at the University of Auckland, is a vocal tutor for the acclaimed New Zealand Youth Choir, the University of Auckland Chamber Choir and for over a decade worked with the award-winning Choralation from Westlake Girls’ and Boys’ High Schools. In 2013 Morag was awarded a doctorate in Musical Arts from the University of Auckland, the first DMA in vocal studies from a New Zealand University and in 2019 was elected as an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM)
MMus (Hons), PGDipMus, BMus, DipTchg
David Squire is one of New Zealand’s most prominent conductors, and Music Director of the New Zealand Youth Choir. Chair of the New Zealand Association of Choral Directors, he is also a national conducting advisor and tutor, and a governance board member of the New Zealand Choral Federation.
David completed his undergraduate study at the University of Auckland, with an emphasis on conducting and composition, later graduating with a Master of Music degree with first class honours in choral conducting. He studied singing with Isabel Cunningham, Glenese Blake and Beatrice Webster, and conducting with Karen Grylls and Juan Matteucci. He has sung with many top choirs in New Zealand, including the Auckland Dorian Choir, University of Auckland Chamber Choir and the New Zealand Youth Choir. He was also a founding member of Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir and the V8 Vocal Ensemble.
David was appointed to the position of Music Director of the New Zealand Youth Choir in 2011 and is the first alumnus conductor of the choir. He has led the choir on three international tours, including the USA and Canada in 2013, which featured performances of the War Requiem by Britten in the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, as well as concerts in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Boston, New York and Washington DC. In 2016 the choir gave concerts in Singapore, the Czech Republic, France and the UK. Tour highlights included singing high mass at Notre-Dame in Paris, a lunchtime concert at Windsor Castle, and producing a live DVD recording of a well-received concert at St Johns Smith Square in London. The choir also participated in the Festival of Academic Choirs in Pardubice, Czech Republic, winning every category it entered, as well as the prize for outstanding vocal culture, and then going on to win the Grand Prix. At the end of 2019 the choir embarked on a Pacific tour aboard the cruise ship MS Maasdam, taking in Tonga, Niue, Fiji, New Caledonia and Sydney.
David has taught music in secondary schools for over 30 years, directing choirs, orchestras and bands, including many groups that have won local, national and international awards. His mixed-voice chamber choir from Rangitoto College, The Fundamentals, won the platinum award at the 2008 NZCF Big Sing Finale in Wellington – the first time a mixed-voice choir achieved this. The Westlake Symphony Orchestra has won a gold award at every KBB Music Festival for more than fifteen years, and also won the award for the best orchestral performance of a New Zealand work for ten of the thirteen years it has been presented. In July 2014 the orchestra won first equal prize at the Summa Cum Laude International Youth Music Festival in Vienna, Austria. His upper voice choir from Kristin School, Euphony, was placed third in the open female choir competition at the International Musical Eisteddfod in Llangollen, Wales, in July 2013, and then represented New Zealand at the ChoralFest convention in Brisbane in 2017. In April 2019 Euphony represented New Zealand at the Budapest International Choral Festival in Hungary, winning the Youth Choirs of Equal Voices category, coming 3rd in the open Musica Sacra category, and was then invited to compete for the Grand Prix. His boys’ choir from Westlake Boys High School, Voicemale, won the Grand Prix at the 2nd Leonardo da Vinci International Choral Festival in Florence, Italy, in July 2018, and David also won the award for best conductor at this event.
As a freelance music educator, David teaches in several secondary schools and frequently runs workshops and professional development courses throughout the country. He has conducted several local ensembles, including the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and the St Matthews Chamber Orchestra. He was the assistant musical director of the New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir, founding musical director of the Auckland Youth Big Band, chairman and administrator of the KBB Music Festival, and a live performance reviewer for Radio NZ Concert. He is often involved in session and recording work, particularly as a conductor, adjudicator, clinician and singer, including a tour with George Benson as backing vocalist in 2010. He was the choral adjudicator and clinician at the Rhapsody Rotorua festival for four consecutive years. He presented workshops at the 2009, 2013 and 2016 Sing Aotearoa Festivals and the 2010 International Summer School of Choral Conducting, where he was a mentor and tutor. In 2011 he directed training workshops for choirs singing the anthems at the Rugby World Cup, and then conducted anthem choirs at seven matches. In 2012 he was a mentor and workshop presenter at the inaugural ACD Choral Connect convention. In March 2017 he was guest conductor of the mixed honour choir at the AMIS festival in Abu Dhabi, UAE, and in July 2017 he directed the choir for Neil Finn’s critically acclaimed album Out of Silence. In February 2018 he was appointed chorusmaster and choral director for the International Schools Choral Music Society, having taken on this role at the annual festival held in Suzhou, China. In February 2019 he conducted the combined ISCMS choir and orchestra in the Chinese premiere of Tippet’s spirituals from A Child of Our Time in the Shanghai Symphony Concert Hall. In July 2019 he served as a jury member for the Andrea O. Veneracion Choral Festival in Manila, Philippines, and also for the 1st Asia Choral Grand Prix.
In March 2011 he was awarded a New Zealander of the Year Local Heroes Medal for services to music education.
PhD, MM (Choral Conducting), MMus Hons, LRSM, LTCL, Dip Teaching
Dr Karen Grylls CNZM founded Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir in 1998 and the choir has achieved great acclaim internationally in performance and recording. She is Associate Professor in Choral Conducting at the University of Auckland and is Artistic Director of the Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand Trust, the managing body for the NZ Youth Choir and Voices NZ. Dr Grylls was Conductor and Artistic Director of the New Zealand Youth Choir from 1989 to 2011, and Artistic Director of Toronto’s Exultate Chamber Choir from 2011 to 2013.
A graduate of both Otago and Auckland Universities, Karen studied post-graduate Conducting and Music Theory at the University of Washington, Seattle, for four years. In 1985 she returned to NZ to teach at the University of Auckland and take up the directorship of the Auckland Dorian Choir.
As a result of her musical directorship, the New Zealand Youth Choir has enjoyed notable international successes including: the Silver Rosebowl in the “Let the Peoples Sing” radio competition in 1992, “Choir of the World” at the 1999 International Eisteddfod in Llangollen and the “Grand Prix Slovakia” also in 1999.
With equal success Voices New Zealand won first and second placings in the mixed choir section of the Tolosa International Choral Competition in October 1998. With these choirs, she has won further prizes and accolades in Gorizia 2004, and Llangollen and Cantonigros, Spain in 2007.
In 1996 Auckland University honoured her with a Distinguished Teaching Award in Music and in 2023 she became a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM) for her services to choral music. She is also the recipient of the KBB Citation from the Composers’ Association of New Zealand and the Lilburn Trust Citation for services to New Zealand music. TOWER Voices CD Spirit of the Land took the 2006 Tui Award for Best Classical Album, and the CD Voice of the Soul was a finalist in the 2013 Vodafone NZ Music awards.
Karen is much in demand as an adjudicator for competitions worldwide, including the 48th International competition in Tolosa, the Marktoberdorf International Chamber Choir Competition, Bavaria, and The World Choir Games in Xiamen, China. She is sought internationally as a choral clinician and regularly conducts masterclasses and workshops in Wales, England, North America, Canada and Australia.
