Saturday Morning with Kim Hill (Radio New Zealand National, 8.10am). It’s the last live show for the year and Hill’s guests include Kiwi playwright Gary Henderson, whose play Peninsula will feature in the New Zealand International Arts Festival in Wellington next year, and fellow festival guest Harry Christophers, the founder and conductor of early music choir and orchestra the Sixteen, who will perform two concerts. Hill will also talk to the Prime Minister’s Future Scientist Award winner. But because it’s Christmas, we’re not going to tell you who it is. That would spoil the surprise.
Pajama Club
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Pajama Club/Lydia Cole Recorded Live at Roundhead Studios (95bFM, 11.00am and Friday, 2.00pm). Neil Finn’s version of a home recording is playing in his very own studio – here with his new band Pajama Club, formed with wife Sharon, Sean Donnelly and Alana Skyring, after the kids left home. To start with, Neil played drums and Sharon played bass, despite neither having played those instruments before. With this band, Neil adds words to instrumentals, whereas with Crowded House numbers, he writes the lyrics first. The result: “It’s not as songy as Crowded House.” This was their first “public” outing, recorded days before they headed to the US to tour with Wilco. Lydia Cole is a North Shore singer-songwriter with a gorgeous voice and great acoustic guitar skills who released her debut EP, Love Will Find a Way, in 2009. She is somewhat mysterious about biographical details and on her Facebook page says only this: “I really wish chimps didn’t de-limb people. I want them as friends.” (The first part of this concert will be repeated on Radio New Zealand National, 4.10pm and Friday, 8.35pm.) There will be live streaming and podcasts on 95bfm.com and video on this website after December 17.
Music Alive (Radio New Zealand Concert, 8.00pm). If it’s Christmas, it must be Handel’s Messiah from Christchurch. The last bit not so much, but this performance of the festive evergreen is especially poignant. Recorded in Christ’s College auditorium on December 3, it has been called “our Christmas gift to the city” by Christchurch City Choir’s music director, Brian Law, with a special ticket price of just $15. The choir and Christchurch Symphony are joined by soloists soprano Anna Leese, mezzo Kate Spence, tenor Keith Lewis and bass Martin Snell. Hallelujah!
SUNDAY DECEMBER 18Spectrum (Radio New Zealand National, 12.15pm). What Happened to the Blind Man? is the story of one person whose life was turned upside down by the Canterbury earthquakes. Blind from birth, Kelvin is a musician who played the recorder near the entrance to the ChristChurch Cathedral and was also a member of the Latin American band Pachamama. Although he wasn’t busking on the day of the February quake, he was trapped in his flat until help came. But after some rural R&R, Kelvin is back in the city and is busking at “a new venue”, as the RNZ publicity intriguingly puts it.
The Sunday Feature (Radio New Zealand National, 4.07pm). Today it’s the final part of the Royal Society of New Zealand’s three-part series, Talking Heads 2011, entitled Inside Out: The Chemistry of Food, Sex and Ageing. From the Auckland Museum, Kim Hill is in conversation with big-brained folk Kate McGrath – director of Victoria University’s MacDiarmid Centre for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology; Maurice Curtis – deputy director of the Human Brain Bank at the University of Auckland; and Wayne Cutfield – director of the Liggins Institute, also at the University of Auckland.
Blue Smoke: The Birth of New Zealand Pop (Radio New Zealand Concert, 7.00pm). Chris Bourke presents the final in the current series of adaptations of his award-winning book. Tonight it’s These Kia Ora Islands, a look at how original songwriting around these parts evolved as bands gained confidence from playing cover versions of overseas hits.
Young New Zealand (Radio New Zealand Concert, 8.00pm). The final Young New Zealand programme for the year is, appropriately enough, a huge celebration of youthful musicality – the Big Sing Gala Concert 2011. This year, the regional finals attracted a record 8500 students and, from an initial 236 secondary school choirs, 22 were selected to go to Wellington for the national finale. Each group sang an item, followed by a massed-choir item – God Defend New Zealand. For the record, top honours (the platinum award) went to Westlake Girls & Boys High Schools’ choir Choralation for the third year in a row.
MONDAY DECEMBER 19Music Alive (Radio New Zealand Concert, 8.00pm). Douglas Lilburn – our most influential composer – died 10 years ago. This commemorative concert, recorded in June in Wellington’s Ilott Theatre, focuses on some of his string chamber works for two, three and four performers. The programme includes Lilburn’s String Quartet, his String Trio and his Violin Sonata, with Martin Riseley and Jun He (violins), Donald Maurice (viola), Inbal Megiddo (cello) and Jian Liu (piano).
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