WINNERS ANNOUNCED FOR THE 2016 APRA SILVER SCROLL AWARDS

Wellington singer-songwriter and internationally acclaimed musician Thomas Oliver has won the 2016 APRA Silver Scroll Award with his captivating love song ‘If I Move To Mars’.

Thomas Oliver accepted the prestigious award at a ceremony held at Vector Arena in Auckland tonight. The accolade acknowledges excellence in songwriting and has in the past been awarded to some of the most recognisable names and songs in New Zealand music, from the Swingers’ ‘Counting The Beat’ and Bic Runga’s ‘Drive’ to Scribe and P Money’s ‘Not Many’ and Lorde and Joel Little’s ‘Royals’.

A sweet and simple, yet compelling, love song, Thomas Oliver says, “On the surface, it's a light-hearted song about taking someone to Mars and lying in the dirt, drinking Cognac and listening to records. But at its core, it's a love song and I meant every word."

“It’s a wonderful thing to recognise talented and hardworking songwriters like Thomas” says Anthony Healey, Head of NZ Operations for APRA AMCOS. “The acclaim of your peers is special, it’s the highest praise and in this case a well-deserved accolade.”

Critically acclaimed musician and songwriter Sean James Donnelly (SJD) was the musical director of tonight’s 51^st APRA Silver Scrolls ceremony, which saw a host of other Kiwi songwriters collect awards.

The incomparable Rob Ruha took the esteemed APRA Maioha Award, recognising exceptional waiata featuring te reo Māori, for his stirring battle anthem ‘Kariri’. The East Coast singer-songwriter is now a two-time recipient of the award.

Wellington composer and violinist, Salina Fisher, won the SOUNZ Contemporary Award for her exquisite composition ‘Rainphase’, inspired by the beauty and chaos of rain in the capital.

The APRA Best Original Music in a Feature Film Award was won by Mahuia Bridgman-Cooper and Tama Waipara for their work on the Lee Tamahori-directed movie Mahana.

One-time Supergroove frontman and well-known composer of music for film and television, Karl Steven, received the APRA Best Original Music in a Series Award for the drama 800 Words.

Rounding off the evening was the induction of Moana Maniapoto into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame. As one of the most recognisable and important voices in Aotearoa, Moana Maniapoto was honoured for the significant impact she has had on the New Zealand life and culture through her music.

The event was supported by RNZ and hosted by RNZ’s John Campbell and proudly supported by Panhead Custom Ales.

Thomas Oliver - If I move to Mars

 

The winner of all awards were:

APRA Silver Scroll Award: Thomas Oliver – ‘If I Move to Mars’
APRA Maioha Award: Rob Ruha – ‘Kariri’
SOUNZ Contemporary Award: Salina Fisher – ‘Rainphase’
APRA Best Original Music in a Feature Film Award:
Mahuia Bridgman-Cooper + Tama Waipara – Mahana
APRA Best Original Music in a Series Award: Karl Steven – ‘800 Words’
Hall of Fame: Moana Maniapoto

WINNERS ANNOUNCED FOR THE 2016 APRA SILVER SCROLL AWARDS

Wellington singer-songwriter and internationally acclaimed musician Thomas Oliver has won the 2016 APRA Silver Scroll Award with his captivating love song ‘If I Move To Mars’.

Thomas Oliver accepted the prestigious award at a ceremony held at Vector Arena in Auckland tonight. The accolade acknowledges excellence in songwriting and has in the past been awarded to some of the most recognisable names and songs in New Zealand music, from the Swingers’ ‘Counting The Beat’ and Bic Runga’s ‘Drive’ to Scribe and P Money’s ‘Not Many’ and Lorde and Joel Little’s ‘Royals’.

A sweet and simple, yet compelling, love song, Thomas Oliver says, “On the surface, it's a light-hearted song about taking someone to Mars and lying in the dirt, drinking Cognac and listening to records. But at its core, it's a love song and I meant every word."

“It’s a wonderful thing to recognise talented and hardworking songwriters like Thomas” says Anthony Healey, Head of NZ Operations for APRA AMCOS. “The acclaim of your peers is special, it’s the highest praise and in this case a well-deserved accolade.”

Critically acclaimed musician and songwriter Sean James Donnelly (SJD) was the musical director of tonight’s 51^st APRA Silver Scrolls ceremony, which saw a host of other Kiwi songwriters collect awards.

The incomparable Rob Ruha took the esteemed APRA Maioha Award, recognising exceptional waiata featuring te reo Māori, for his stirring battle anthem ‘Kariri’. The East Coast singer-songwriter is now a two-time recipient of the award.

Wellington composer and violinist, Salina Fisher, won the SOUNZ Contemporary Award for her exquisite composition ‘Rainphase’, inspired by the beauty and chaos of rain in the capital.

The APRA Best Original Music in a Feature Film Award was won by Mahuia Bridgman-Cooper and Tama Waipara for their work on the Lee Tamahori-directed movie Mahana.

One-time Supergroove frontman and well-known composer of music for film and television, Karl Steven, received the APRA Best Original Music in a Series Award for the drama 800 Words.

Rounding off the evening was the induction of Moana Maniapoto into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame. As one of the most recognisable and important voices in Aotearoa, Moana Maniapoto was honoured for the significant impact she has had on the New Zealand life and culture through her music.

The event was supported by RNZ and hosted by RNZ’s John Campbell and proudly supported by Panhead Custom Ales.

Thomas Oliver - If I move to Mars

 

The winner of all awards were:

APRA Silver Scroll Award: Thomas Oliver – ‘If I Move to Mars’
APRA Maioha Award: Rob Ruha – ‘Kariri’
SOUNZ Contemporary Award: Salina Fisher – ‘Rainphase’
APRA Best Original Music in a Feature Film Award:
Mahuia Bridgman-Cooper + Tama Waipara – Mahana
APRA Best Original Music in a Series Award: Karl Steven – ‘800 Words’
Hall of Fame: Moana Maniapoto

 

 

ROB RUHA – TOA O TE TOHU MAIOHA A APRA I NGĀ TOHU SILVER SCROLLS 

ROB RUHA WINS THE APRA MAIOHA AWARD AT THE APRA SILVER SCROLL AWARDS

I tēnei pō ka whakawhiwhia te Tohu Maioha a APRA ki a Rob Ruha, he kaitito-kaiwaiata nō Te Tai Rāwhiti, i tēnei te rima tekau mā tahi o Ngā Tohu Silver Scrolls a APRA i Tāmaki Makaurau. Pakō ana te ‘Kariri’ a Rob Ruha i te nguha a IHI (Thomas Rāwiri rāua ko Mokoia Huata) me tā rāua waiata ‘Mana Whenua’, i a Kirsten Te Rito me tana waiata ‘Tamaiti Ngaro’, he mea tito e James Illingworth rāua ko Joseph Te Rito. E whai wāhi ana a Tiki Taane ki rō ‘Kariri’, he mea hahu ake i ngā kōrero a te iwi Māori me tōna whawhai mō te Mana Māori Motuhake – Tino Rangatiratanga ki ngā ope tauā o Ingarangi i ngā tau 1850. Tērā te tohungatanga o Rob Ruha ki te whakairo i te mana, te wairua o te kupu ki te paeoro tākirikiri whatumanawa hei tohu i te kakari, te pōuri, te mate, te riri, te mārohirohi me te tūmanako. Tā te Tohu Maioha a APRA he whakanui i te kairangi o te waiata reo Māori, ā, ko te tuarua tēnei ka riro i a Rob Ruha, nāna hoki i toa i te tau 2014 mō tana waiata a ‘Tiki Tapu’. Nō Wharekahika (Te Tai Rāwhiti) tēnei poho kererū o Ngāti Porou me Te Whānau-a-Apanui, kua rongonui, kua tino kauanuanu a Rob Ruha i te Ao Māori me te ao waiata o Aotearoa. He pūkenga ahurei, he kairaranga, he kaitito waiata, haka, mōteatea, he mātanga kapahaka, he tupua ki te kōrero anō hoki. Ka rangona te waiata ‘Kariri’ a Rob Ruha i runga i tana kōpae roa tuatahi a PŪMAU, i whakaputaina i tēnei tau, ā, e tāpoi ana ia i Aotearoa ināianei tonu. I whakawhiwhia tuatahitia te Tohu Maioha a APRA i te tau 2003, ā, mai i tērā wā, kua tau a Te Ngore – te pakoko o te tohu Maioha i whakairotia ai e Brian Flintoff – ki roto ki ngā ringa o ētahi o ngā kaitito waiata tino kauanuanu o Aotearoa; pērā i a Ngahiwi Apanui - te tangata i whakawhiwhia tuatahitia ai ki te tohu, ki a Whirimako Black, ki a Ruia Aperahama, ki a Te Awanui Reeder, ki a Maisey Rika, ki a Vince Harder, ki a Troy Kingi rātou ko Stan Walker. I te tukuhanga o Te Ngore i tētahi kaitito ki tētahi, ka mahara tātou he mana tō te puoro hei whakakotahi, hei taunaki, hei whakaako, hei whakakori, hei whakaahuru, hei whakamārama, hei whakaawe anō hoki i a tātou. Ka riro mā te toa o te Tohu Maioha a APRA a Te Ngore e tiaki mō ngā marama tekau mā tahi, ā, ka whakawhiwhia te $3,000. I tū Ngā Tohu Silver Scrolls 2016 i te Whare Tapere o Vector, i Tāmaki Makaurau i te Rāpare 29 o Mahuru. Mō ētahi atu whakamahukitanga, me ngā toa katoa, tirohia www.apraamcos.co.nz He mea tautoko tēnei kaupapa nā Panhead Custom Ales.

East Coast singer-songwriter and musician Rob Ruha has won the prestigious APRA Maioha Award, handed out at tonight’s 51^st APRA Silver Scroll Awards in Auckland.

Rob Ruha’s dramatic waiata ‘Kariri’ faced fierce competiton from IHI (Thomas Rawiri and Mokoia Huata) with their song ‘Mana Whenua’ and Kirsten Te Rito with ‘Tamaiti Ngaro’, co-written with James Illingworth and Joseph Te Rito.

‘Kariri’, featuring Tiki Taane, is inspired by historical accounts of the Māori nations’ fight for sovereignty against colonial forces in the 1850s. Rob Ruha masterfully weaves together powerful and poignant lyrics with an emotionally charged soundscape that depicts war, darkness, loss, anger, resolution and hope.

The APRA Maioha Award recognises exceptional waiata featuring te reo Māori, and tonight’s win makes Rob Ruha a two-time recipient, after he was first awarded the prestigious accolade in 2014 for ‘Tiki Tapu’.

Hailing from Wharekahika (Te Tai Rāwhiti) and proudly Ngāti Porou and Te Whānau-a-Apanui, Rob Ruha is a well-known and highly respected figure in Maoridom and Aotearoa’s music scene. He is also an accomplished lecturer, weaver, composer of waiata, haka and moteatea, an expert in kapa haka and a legendary orator.

‘Kariri’ features on Rob Ruha’s award-winning debut album PŪMAU, released earlier this year, which he is currently touring around New Zealand.

The APRA Maioha Award was first awarded in 2003, and since then Te Ngore – the Maioha award sculpture carved by Brian Flintoff - has passed through the hands of some of Aotearoa’s most respected songwriters; including the inaugural recipient Ngahiwi Apanui, Whirimako Black, Ruia Aperahama, Te Awanui Reeder, Maisey Rika, Vince Harder, Troy Kingi and Stan Walker.

As Te Ngore passes from one composer to the next, it reminds us that music has the power to unite, bear witness, educate, agitate, comfort, illuminate and inspire us.

The winner of the APRA Maioha Award becomes guardian of Te Ngore for 11 months and receives a cash prize of $3000.

The 2016 APRA Silver Scroll Awards were held at Vector Arena in Auckland on Thursday 29^th September.

For more information, including all winners, visit www.apraamcos.co.nz

2016 APRA SILVER SCROLL AWARD - will be announced tonight

Moana Maniapoto is inducted into the 2016 APRA Hall of Fame.

Maniapoto was born in Invercargill, New Zealand and attended St Joseph's Māori Girls' College in Napier. She is said to have paid her way through law school by singing covers in the highly competitive Auckland club circuit.
In 1987, Moana released "Kua Makona", as part of an effort to promote moderation to young Maori. The song was produced by Maui Dalvanius Prime and featured in the RIANZ Top 50 singles chart.
In 2002, Moana formed the band Moana and the Tribe which consisted of a large group of musicians and performers with a passion for Maori culture. Since their formation, the band has performed hundreds of international concerts, cementing their reputation as one of the most successful indigenous bands to emerge from New Zealand. Prior to 2002, Moana’s former band, Moana & the Moahunters released two albums, Tahi and Rua. Their feminist anthem Black Pearl reached no. 2 on the national charts in 1991, earning Moana her first gold.

Moana won the grand prize at the 2003 International Songwriting Competition with her song "Moko".

Moana has developed a high international profile, being described as ‘brilliant’ by The Beat (USA, 2004), ‘New Zealand's most exciting music export’ (Marie Claire, 2002), ‘music of great depth and beauty’ (New Zealand Herald, 2003) and gaining rave reviews from one Germany's more critical columnists in its largest daily newspaper (Süddeutsche Zeitung 2002, 2004),
In the 2004 Queen's Birthday Honours List, Moana was appointed Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit. She is also a Life Time Recipient of the Toi Iho Māori Made Mark and received the 2005 Te Tohu Mahi Hou a Te Waka Toi Award from Te Waka Toi (Creative N.Z), in recognition of her outstanding leadership and contribution to the development of new directions in Māori art. Moana received a Music Industry Award at the Maori Waiata 2008 Awards, also for her positive contribution to Māori Music.
In 2006, Moana and the Tribe completed a 25 gig tour of Europe and had the distinction of being the first New Zealand band known to have performed in the former Soviet Union - playing at a private party hosted in Moscow's First Club, then at Le Club.

Moana released her fourth album Wha in May 2008. She toured in 2008 and 2009 Germany, Australia, Netherlands, Turkey, New Zealand and performed at the opening of the Biennale in Venice / Italy in June 2009. Moana & the Tribe launched songs from their 5th album "Rima" in 2014 at Womad NZ, in a performance described in the NZ Herald as "the most powerful, enjoyable and important act on the mainstage at this years Womad in Taranaki."

In 2014, Moana and her band formed the Boomerang Collaboration with Scottish band Breabach, Shellie Morris, Casey Donovan and Djakapurra, playing concerts at Womad NZ, Sydney Opera House and HebCelt (Scotland). "Rima" was a finalist at the 2015 Vodafone NZ Music Awards and the song "Upokohue" was a finalist in the APRA Maioha Award. It won 2nd place in the World category at the International Songwriting Contest.
Moana is one half of an award-winning film-making team led by her partner and band member Toby Mills. Their documentary work includes Guarding the Family Silver, which screened in the National Geographic All Roads Film Festival and The Russians are Coming, which played at the Sydney Opera House during the Message Sticks Indigenous Film Festival in 2012.

She is also a regular writer for the Maori and Pacific online weekly newspaper e-tangata.

FULL LIST OF FINALISTS – 2016:

2016 APRA SILVER SCROLL AWARD
Lydia Cole – ‘Dream’ – Lydia Cole
The Phoenix Foundation – ‘Give Up Your Dreams’ – Samuel Scott, Lukasz Buda, Conrad Wedde, William Ricketts, Thomas Callwood, Christopher O’Connor
(Native Tongue Music Publishing)
Thomas Oliver – ‘If I Move To Mars’ – Thomas Oliver (Mushroom Music Pty Ltd)
Street Chant – ‘Pedestrian Support League’ – Emily Littler, Billie Rogers, Alex Brown, Christopher Varnham (Arch Hill Music Publishing / Native Tongue Music Publishing)
Tami Neilson – ‘The First Man’ – Tami Neilson, Jay Neilson

APRA MAIOHA AWARD
Rob Ruha feat. Tiki Taane – ‘Kariri’ – Rob Ruha
IHI – ‘Mana Whenua’ – Thomas Rawiri, Mokoia Huata
(Woodcut Productions / Waatea Music)
Kirsten Te Rito – ‘Tamaiti Ngaro’ – Kirsten Te Rito, James Illingworth, Joseph Te Rito

SOUNZ CONTEMPORARY AWARD
‘Piano Trip’ – Kenneth Young
‘Rainphase’ – Salina Fisher
‘Viola Concerto’ – Chris Cree Brown

APRA BEST ORIGINAL MUSIC IN A FEATURE FILM AWARD
Hunt For The Wilderpeople – Samuel Scott, Lukasz Buda, Conrad Wedde
(Native Tongue Music Publishing)
Mahana (The Patriarch) – Mahuia Bridgeman-Cooper, Tama Waipara
The Art Of Recovery – Tom McLeod

APRA BEST ORIGINAL MUSIC IN A SERIES AWARD
800 Words – Karl Steven (Native Tongue Music Publishing)
Jiwi’s Machines – Age Pryor
The Brokenwood Mysteries – Tami Neilson, Jay Neilson

Groove Book Report - Burt Munro - The Lost Interviews by Neill Birss

Herbert James "Burt" Munro was a New Zealand motorcycle racer, famous for setting an under-1,000 cc world record, at Bonneville, 26 August 1967. This record still stands; Munro was 68 and was riding a 47-year-old machine when he set his last record.

"In the late 1960s in Invercargill, two blokes sat in a modest shed drinking tea. The old bloke was telling stories about his life, the young bloke, a junior reporter, was typing on his portable typewriter. Dramatic tales of youthful scrapes, motorcycle races, international travel and friendships. The young journalist Neill Birss moved away from Invercargill and never published the typescript interviews. They surfaced again many decades later"

Apart from racing and Salt Lake experiences, this new book also brings stories of Burt’s early motorcycling adventures Southland, his 'prior' life in Australia in the 1920s and again in the early 1950s, and of the great moments on the road through the United States (which are only touched on in Donaldson's movie).


Early Kiwi motor-ventures cover Burt’s ride up the Hollyford Valley while the road was still being built, and therefore extremely treacherous, and as a salesman for H&J Tapper’s, riding his  coal-gas powered one-speed flat out around the streets of Invercargill. ) bike powered by the coal-gas unit he built. And then there's explosion as a result of tempering steel at Melhop’s and another high-speed crash, this time at Teretonga.

If anything this is the Munro story you'd most likely get if Burt was your grandad and you were sitting attentive and quiet on his knee after he'd finished a plate of good roast and a couple of whiskeys.  It's all in his own words as recorded in a series of interviews with Southland reporter Neill Birss, nearly 50 years ago and  rounds out the Munro history with stories of his life not printed before.  In those days Burt was well known among New Zealand and American motorcyclists, but it was before the 2005 film, The World's Fastest Indian made Burt a world celebrity.

Birss' plan was to write series of articles on Munro for overseas and New Zealand motorcycle magazine. But the project was interrupted when Birss moved to Christchurch and the notes, which had been taken in the first person, were lost. Then after the Christchurch earthquakes he was dumping rubbish to make room for repairs and he found the notes just as they were about to go into a skip and it was this collection that we now have.  Maybe good things can come from bad, occasionally.

Neill Birss is a Christchurch business and technology reporter. As a young journalist in Invercargill he interviewed Burt Munro for a few months with the goal of writing a series of articles about Burt for overseas motorcycle magazines. Then he lost the interview material : until now. Birss rode an ex-army Indian motorcycle on a farm as a schoolboy, and much later commuted on a Honda road bike, but computers and electronics generally have long been his main technology interest.

 Burt's Indian, with commentary by Jay Leno

Groove Book Report - The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution by Jonathan Eig. Norton

For nearly half of the 20th century, women were beating a path to Margaret Sanger's door with a plea: “Do tell me the secret, ” they wrote in their impassioned letters, “doctors are men and have not had a baby so they have no pity [sic] for a poor sick mother.” But Sanger concealed no great secrets preventing pregnancy, especially when you didn’t want to. By Sanger’s time, modern medicine had improved upon the crocodile dung ancient Egyptians used as vaginal plugs and the lemon half Casanova recommended as a cervical cap — but not by much. Let's face it men, and the church, and doctors and every God Damn politician this side of the North Pole had an opinion and an attitude on women's sexual health and believed they were the only ones who could determine when a women could or could not get pregnant.  Diaphragms were faulty and ill-used. And condoms depended on men’s will, at a time when a doctor could advise a woman to sleep on her roof to avoid her husband’s advances.  They were wrong.  Thank the Gods. 

The birth of the pill is about the four pioneers of the contraceptive pill, namely Margaret Sanger, a campaigner for women’s rights, Gregory Pincus, a physiologist, Katherine McCormick, a wealthy widow who financed much of the work, and John Rock, a Catholic gynaecologist. What they achieved is remarkable, particularly considering how little money and resource there was for the research.

The star of the book is undoubtedly Pincus. Sacked from Harvard, ostensibly because his work on reproduction was so controversial, he briefly worked at Clark University, US, then set up the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology. This privately-funded research institute had a precarious existence until it was taken over by the University of Massachusetts Medical School well after the events recounted in this book. The author treats Pincus as a scientific genius and visionary, though many of his colleagues took a less charitable view.
The book is written in a fast-paced style, without any hint of light or shade. The heroes are stereotypical heroes, flawless dispellers of darkness and brilliant in their pursuit of the truth. Personally, I prefer my history more nuanced than this.


Former Wall Street Journal reporter Eig (Luckiest Man) blends the story of the “only product in American history so powerful that it needed no name” with the lives of the four-larger-than-life characters who dreamed, funded, researched, and tested it. Eig recapitulates much of what’s known about the discovery of oral contraceptives and adds a wealth of unfamiliar material. He frames his story around the brilliant Gregory Pincus, who was let go by Harvard after his controversial work on in-vitro fertilization; charismatic Catholic fertility doctor John Rock, who developed a treatment that blocked ovulation and, with Pincus, began human testing (including on nonconsenting asylum patients); and the two fearless women who paid for and supported their work, rebellious women’s rights crusader and Planned Parenthood pioneer Margaret Sanger and her intellectual heiress, Katharine Dexter McCormick. The twists and turns of producing a birth control pill in the mid-20th century mirrored astonishing changes in the cultural landscapes: Eig notes how, in July 1959, the publication of Lady Chatterley’s Lover and G.D. Searle’s request for FDA approval of Enovid presaged a “tidal wave that would sweep away the nation’s culture of restraint.” Eig’s fascinating narrative of medical innovation paired so perfectly with social revolution befits a remarkable chapter of human history.

The book is nimbly paced and conversational, but its breezy style can trip on the rails of those politics, particularly when it comes to what the pill, and all the forms of effective hormonal contraception that followed it, meant to women’s lives. Shifting social mores are reduced to postage stamps, and though the analysis is infrequent, it jars.

When it comes to delineating contraception’s downsides, Eig doesn’t seem to think he has to prove the offhand and highly arguable claim that in the years that followed, “birth control would also contribute to the spread of divorce, infidelity, single parenthood, abortion and pornography.” He also blithely dismisses as futile Sanger’s hope that “the pill might lift women out of poverty and stop the world’s rapid population growth. In fact, the pill has been far more popular and had greater impact among the affluent than the poor and has been far more widely used in developed countries than developing ones.” 

Contraception hasn’t been a panacea for broader inequality, and it will never be, even if IUDs were available free on demand on every street corner. But no serious accounting of women’s progress over the past decades, however incomplete, can leave out the transformative role controlling their fertility has already had in allowing women to chart their own destinies. That radical transformation also helps account for the enduring fierceness of contraception’s opponents.

It is an old argument to blame social ills on too much freedom for women, or on the tools of it. Eig notes that when Sanger gave an interview to Mike Wallace she was asked, “Could it be that women in the United States have become too independent — that they followed the lead of women like Margaret Sanger by neglecting family life for a career?” The year was 1957.