Regional Wrap on the Waikanae River
This week for our Regional Wrap on Culture 101 we visit the beautiful Waikanae River on the Kapiti Coast, and the settlements on its banks of Waikanae and Otaihanga. These are two of the locations for a brand new book festival being held on the 9th and 10th of August called Bookmark Kapiti. We're joined on the line by its founder in Waikanae Kirsten La Harivel, a writer and producer who works at Waikanae's Mahara Gallery.
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RNZ News
23 minutes ago
- RNZ News
Kerikeri's world-class events facility, the Turner Centre, turns 20
Turner Centre general manager Gerry Paul. Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf Twenty years ago a dream of building a world-class performing arts centre became reality in a small Far North town. But how did Kerikeri end up with a venue the envy of cities many times its size? Gerry Paul, the current general manager, recalled his surprise when he first saw the Turner Centre. It was 2017 and he was a travelling musician on tour with singer-songwriter Mel Parsons. "I remember driving into Kerikeri, what I thought was a reasonably small town, and seeing this massive events centre. And I was like, 'Wow, these guys are lucky'. Little did I know a few years later I'd be up here running the place. Careful what you wish for, eh?" While that initial surprise may have worn off after three years in the job - following a stint running Wellington's popular CubaDupa festival - Paul said he still found it remarkable. "For a town under 10,000 people, to have a 400-seat theatre and an event centre that can accommodate 1000 people is just amazing. It's probably one of the very few towns around the world that [has] a facility of this size for the population." With the Turner Centre widely regarded as the best performing arts venue north of Auckland , many touring groups bypassed Whangārei and headed straight for little Kerikeri instead. "It's meant that we've had access to performances that you would never otherwise get in a small town. The capability of the stage and the capacity of the fly tower and the rigging system means we can bring up the likes of the Royal New Zealand Ballet or the Symphony Orchestra." The Kerikeri-based Northern Dance Academy performs The Nutcracker in 2015. Photo: Peter de Graaf The other thing that made the Turner Centre unusual was that it was planned and paid for by locals, not by the council or government. "That's a big part of the Turner Centre story. The whole building was built and fundraised by the community. So there's a real investment in the place, and that's why we see it so well attended." The dream began in the 1970s when arts enthusiasts John Dalton and Doug Turner were putting on shows in the Memorial Hall, a possum-infested former fruit-packing shed. As the population, and interest in the arts, grew in the 1980s, they decided something bigger and better was needed. Doug Turner in 2011. Photo: Peter de Graaf Aided by fellow volunteers they spent the next two decades planning, lobbying, cajoling and fundraising. What was initially known as The Centre at Kerikeri was opened on 5 August, 2005, by then-Prime Minister Helen Clark. Its bold design, by local architect Martyn Evans, included a distinctive swooping roof to create space for stage machinery. The roof also gave the centre its early nickname, 'the ski ramp'. John Dalton died in 2012 followed by Doug Turner just late last year. The venue was renamed the Turner Centre in 2011; the main auditorium had already been named after Dalton. The centre's distinctive roof led to its nickname, 'the ski ramp'. Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf Turner's daughter, Susan Corbett, said he father would have loved to see this weekend's 20th anniversary show. "He would have thought it was absolutely wonderful. And he'd be very pleased to see that everything that he and John dreamt about all those years ago has come to fruition, and is still happening - and in very exciting ways with Gerry keeping things moving on." Corbett said her parents owned Kerikeri's Cathay Cinema for 35 years. They would host art exhibitions and plays at the cinema before joining Dalton organising shows in the Memorial Hall. Corbett said their legacy showed the value of dreaming big. "Why not dream big? And it's just as well they did, because we probably wouldn't be able to afford it today. Their dream has happened, and the community has got this wonderful asset because of it." Scene from Kerikeri Theatre Company's The Sound of Music in 2021. Photo: Peter de Graaf In total, building the two stages of the Turner Centre - The Plaza event centre was completed in 2012 - cost around $20 million. Gerry Paul said a commercial building expert had told him building the same venue today would cost more than $100m. Operating a large venue in a small town was not without its problems, however. In 2024, with rising maintenance costs and the after-effects of the Covid pandemic threatening to overwhelm the Kerikeri Civic Trust, the Far North District Council took over ownership of the building. The trust was still responsible for equipment, staff and programming. In the past year Paul said the centre had been used by 43,000 people, had 558 bookings, and given away 5000 free event tickets to youth. A shift since 2022 towards greater inclusion had included a series of "pay what you can" events and initiatives such as community kapa haka . Bay of Islands College cultural group Te Roopu o Pewhairangi performs at the Turner Centre's 10th anniversary celebration in 2015. Photo: Peter de Graaf John Oszajca, a US-born actor and singer-songwriter who now lived in Kerikeri, said the town was "incredible lucky" to have a venue like the Turner Centre. Now the president of Kerikeri Theatre Company, Oszajca said he had performed at the centre as a musician and actor, as well as bringing plays to life on the stage. One of his personal highlights was co-producing the musical Little Shop of Horrors in 2024. He said the venue had become a second home to him. "I think having high-calibre performing arts, which you couldn't have without a venue like this, makes the quality of life notably better. It's one thing to live in a beautiful town. It's another thing to live in a beautiful town that has amenities, and it's another thing again to live in a town that offers inspiration to the people that live there, both as artists and as patrons." The centre had also served as a springboard for young performers who had gone on to forge careers in the arts. One of those hoping to follow in their footsteps is 17-year-old Jack Laird, a Year 13 student at Kerikeri High. Laird had just played the part of Scuttle the Seagull in the Little Mermaid; this Saturday he would be one of more than 100 performers taking part in the centre's 20th anniversary show. On this occasion he would be playing drums for hard rock band Bandwidth Riot, winners of the recent Far North Smokefreerockquest. Having a venue like the Turner Centre meant a lot to Kerikeri youth, he said. "It's so nice to have that venue, that outlet, to be creative and just give us a voice. I don't know what we'd do without the Turner Centre." Also performing in Saturday night's anniversary show would be the Bay of Islands Singers, Kerikeri Theatre Company, Taylah Barker from Fly My Pretties, a duo from Americana folk band T Bone, local rocker Merv Pinny and Ngāti Rehia Community Kapa Haka, with local legend Troy Kingi the headline act. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
11 hours ago
- RNZ News
Musicians concerned by lack of regulation around fast-evolving AI technology
Jeremy Toy. Photo: RNZ / Evie Richardson New Zealand's musicians are watching on with a mix of horror and wonder as artificial intelligence programmes create increasingly plausible songs, often with just a few clicks of a button. Just weeks ago a band called the 'Velvet Sundown' rose up the Spotify charts before it was revealed all their music had been generated by AI. As the technology continues to evolve at breakneck speed, artists and producers here are concerned about the lack of regulation around the tech. In recent years, a number of easily accessible generative AI music tools have been released, where users can create complete songs by merely inserting a simple prompt. One of these is Suno, a US-based company, which has faced a number of lawsuits from major record labels in the US and Germany over copyright issues. Sophie Burbery, a musician and PHD student studying the topic, said companies like Suno don't disclose what music their AI software is learning from, leaving artists vulnerable. "Suno has admitted that all of its music is trained on anything that it can scrape from the internet under fair use. No decisions have been made yet within those court systems as to whether or not they can actually rely on that as a way of getting away with not paying musicians for their music or licensing it or asking permission because at the moment they've done none of those things. " Experts say the use of AI here in New Zealand is similar to the 'wild west' with no regulation or laws in place. Concern was sparked following the recent release of the government's AI strategy report, which contained no mention of the implications for creative industries. Burbery said if this continues, the consequences could be dire for our music and other creative industries. "It's really up to the government to be doing this work, and to be saying hey look, you want to have your platform up in New Zealand Suno and Udio you need to tell us where and how you've trained your AI, and it has to be labelled as the output and who owns the output of the ai?" Sophie Burbery. Photo: Supplied / Paul Taylor These AI programmes have generated many questions around copyright, an area where New Zealand is unique. Under the current Copyright Act, when a person uses AI to create a piece of art, such as a song, the end product automatically belongs to them, even it's based on a multitude of other people's songs. Clive Elliott KC, a barrister at Shortland Chambers who specialises in Intellectual Property told Checkpoint the current law is not fit for purpose when it comes to protecting creatives. "We can't use old principles that have been around for many years. We've got to say this is a completely different paradigm we face in here and we have to find a way which compensates people who have contributed to the learning process." Elliot said the Copyright Act is simply too out of date to apply to the rapidly evolving technology. "It's theft in a way, but it's theft of a tiny piece of information. And the problem with copyright is you have to show that a substantial part of the work has been copied." "The Copyright Act has been under review for years now. [The government] need to step up and say this is this is urgent." For some in the industry, like producer and artist Jeremy Toy, the risks are worrying. "If it's adopted early on with songwriters that it normalises the process of using AI to create your music. It's completely stripping you of your creative ideas." "I find it offensive as a musician that people think they can train a computer to think independently like a creative." They said there are some things that AI will never be able to replicate. "Connecting on the level that's not verbal, just being in a room with someone and playing music with them, that will never be recreated." Although the buzz around AI has amplified in recent years, some musicians say its been a part of the industry for a while now. Rodi Kirk. Photo: RNZ / Evie Richardson Rodi Kirk, who works in music tech, said AI is commonly used when producing music, particularly in the mixing and mastering stages of production. "One thing that might be surprising is that tools that rely on machine learning are not super new in terms of music production." Kirk remained optimistic about the benefits the technology could bring. "I wouldn't release a song and swap my voice for somebody that was well known, but you might do things that change your voice around for creative purposes. This general suite of tools that will be enabled by AI, I think people will do really creative stuff with them. " With no regulation or protections for artists in sight, Burbery said it is unclear where AI will take the music industry next. "It could offer many great creative possibilities but we don't know what they are because the way it has been developed is so unethical." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
13 hours ago
- RNZ News
NZ musicians concerned about implications of AI
New Zealand's musicians are watching on with a mix of horror and wonder as artificial intelligence programmes create increasingly plausible songs ... often with just a few clicks of a button. Just weeks ago a band called the 'Velvet Sundown' rose up the Spotify charts before it was revealed all their music had been generated by AI. As the technology continues to evolve at breakneck speed, artists and producers here are concerned about the lack of regulation around the tech. To find out what risks and potential benefits AI may hold for Aotearoa's music industry, Evie Richardson tested out some of the tech on offer. Tags: To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
