Concert stoush a bitter symphony

value 1930s and 1940s material on RNZ National but now are denied the opportunity by hipper playlists: they have one foot in the grave so they don’t really count. No matter that a unique service has been replaced with an imitation of that heard commercially elsewhere.

In reality, music is a continuum: each style and genre informs all others. Classical music is for everyone. Age and skin colour are irrelevant. The cultural legacy is universal. Music connects us all. Or can, if the bean counters allow it.

Looked at from this perspective, Concert FM is a precious asset. It’s a repository of knowledge, impossible to replicate in a commercial context. Once lost, it’s gone forever. That our state broadcaster could even contemplate its axing begs questions about the competence of those in charge, folk with an impressive command of jargon but precious little soul. Convention might dictate that Faafoi and Ardern cannot interfere in operational matters at RNZ but that’s not to say that these clowns cannot be fired outright. A choice between the Concert FM announcers and their bosses is no choice at all. Off with their heads.

My Waitangi Day evening was spent in the company of those who have a broader perspective on such things than I’ll ever have. The legendary Flying Nun band Sneaky Feelings, reformed of late but with its origins in the 1980s, took what was advertised as a final bow at Hamilton’s Nivara Lounge. The gig