Live music comes to Small Halls
Reb Fountain to perform at Pukehou
Central Hawke’s Bay will host award-winning artist Reb Fountain this week at Pukehou’s Christ
Church.
Fountain, who won the 2021 Taite Music
Prize for her 2020 self-titled album, is performing as part of the Small Hall Sessions, created by promoter Jamie Macphail, who hails from CHB. He is bringing live music to halls at the heart of Hawke’s Bay communities, with an aim to create community events that will revitalise the halls.
Fountain has sold out all of her “Small Hall” performances apart from Sherenden.
Macphail has been promoting live music in the Bay for the past eight years through the Sitting Room Sessions — a concept which brings artists to Hawke’s Bay for sit-down style shows.
Small Hall Sessions will do the same thing, bringing New Zealand, — and, hopefully in future international artists — to perform at the community halls across Hawke’s Bay.
The idea came to Macphail during lockdown last year when he wanted
Reb Fountain, who won the 2021 Taite Music Prize for herself-titled album, is performing in Pukehou.
to use what he was already doing for a greater, community purpose.
Community halls are “amazing little buildings” that have had an important place in small communities throughout their history, and would be used often.
Macphail was brought up in Central Hawke’s Bay and says Pukehou Hall played “a major part” in his upbringing.
Though some of the halls have activities such as playgroup or community classes, Macphail said after
talking to the people who book the halls, very few have had live music there in recent times.
Macphail has hosted the Sitting Room Sessions at Haumoana Hall and said he often receives feedback that the community enjoyed being able to walk to their local hall for a show.
“It’s about having stuff that brings an often relatively isolated community together. Schools and sports clubs do a great job of that but this is something different, where people that might not have kids at the schools have a reason to be gathering with neighbours that they might not otherwise be seeing very often.”
He hopes the local communities will also get involved in events at their halls with local school or EIT musicians performing, locals speaking before shows and holding charity meals before.
Macphail hopes to bring 20 artists a year to Hawke’s Bay for the Small Hall Sessions.
More details are on the smallhallsessions.co.nz website and community members who want to get involved can contact Macphail at info@smallhall sessions.co.nz.