Spirit of New Zealand calls
Tenor Michael Burch first sang in public in a Sunday School choir at the age of three. He eventually turned professional and moved to England in 1973, spending two years at Glyndebourne Opera before freelancing in opera and oratorio.
He sailed a home-built yacht back to New Zealand in the mid-80s and was a presenter on Concert FM before returning to singing. He moved to Kerikeri in 2009.
In addition to the choir programme, there will be a short organ work by Bach performed by Michael Bell and Marcello’s Oboe Concerto performed by Pippa Howes on flute and Philippa Mandeno on oboe.
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The three-masted barquentine Spirit of New Zealand Te Waka Herenga Tangata o Aotearoa called in to Opua last week. Her visit was brief.
She was tied up alongside for provisioning for a 10-day voyage. She had been five weeks in Whangarei for her annual refit and then sailed north to the Bay of Islands.
“They eat well on board,” said the onshore support person, Pete Anderson, who lives in Auckland and who drove to Opua to load up the supplies.
“They have meat and veges, salads and always have a dessert,” he said. He didn’t mention fish.
While in Opua the ship will swap crews and bring in a new batch of trainees, the 16-19-year-old students who are accepted from individual schools to complete the 10-day sailing voyage. There’s a fulltime cook on board, six permanent crew, an engineer and up to eight volunteers, or trainees.
Once provisioned, which took about 10 hours, she was at sea again for the 10-day journey back to Auckland. She may call in to Great Barrier Island but that would be weather dependent.
In addition to the students’ 10-day voyage, the Spirit of New Zealand will do an educational, five-day trip for Year 10 students who will compete against three other schools for the bragging rights of winning the Spirit trophy.
Occasionally, she will do a trip for adults to give over-18-year-olds the chance to experience a sailing boat.
The Spirit of New Zealand is operated under the auspices of the Spirit of Adventure Trust.
Youth and Emerging Art at Turner Centre
An exhibition of youth and emerging art, called ARTS XL Ramping Up is on display at the Turner Centre from 4th August.
It is collated by photographer Claire Gordon under the KidsmART brand and includes a silent auction. She said she noticed the creative talent among youngsters in the community and how they were either producing work on sub-quality paper or were really struggling with the cost of materials.
“I managed to get costs sponsored for the first exhibition with all the funds being returned directly to the youth specifically to spend on their creative development.”
The “Ramping” refers to the staircase leading to the upper floor of the Turner Centre where the artwork is displayed progressively along the walls adjacent to the stairs.
The artists are either seniors at school or graduates at college studying creative arts and they are invited to exhibit alongside the emerging artists who have chosen their career path and are starting on their journey.
The inaugural exhibition is subtitled Hektor Meets the Lurker and is by youth artist Hector Danilo and emerging artist Jackson Ansted.
Jackson Ansted is now 26. He attended Kerikeri High School and then Northtec where he achieved a Bachelor of Arts.
His artistic practice centres around his character, Lurker. He aims at providing a light-hearted, tongue-incheek retrospective on his life with influences in skateboarding and various 80s and 90s skateboard literature.
“Hekter” is Hector Danilo, a Year 13 student at Kerikeri High School. He creates fine line drawings that challenge the status quo. He was a finalist for the National Youth Arts Award in 2021 and won the Art trophy in two consecutive years at Kerikeri High School. He has already undertaken some commission work depicting the war in the Ukraine.
Claire Gordon says she would love to connect with more youth artists to display their work.