Category : Articles

Congratulations Celia Stewart for Queen’s Birthday Honours MNZM

Congratulations to Celia Stewart on being made a Member of New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for her outstanding services to Music Education over many years.   For services to music education Mrs Celia Stewart has contributed to music education in the Canterbury region and nationally for more than 40…

Tribute to Ian Dando

life-story-ian-dando-one-of-nzs-top-music-critics Obituary: Ian Dando​ 1934-2019 worked for the Ministry of Education as the Otago music advisor in Dunedin. In Christchurch he worked as a senior music lecturer at the College of Education. He was also known as a music reviewer and gifted school music teacher.

Stop Defending Music Education

Today I ran across one more xeroxed handout touting the test-taking benefits of music education, defending music as a great tool for raising test scores and making students smarter. It was just one more example among many of the “keep music because it helps with other things“ pieces out there.…

Musical Literacy: a skill of some note

  In 2015 a story ran in the UK press which revealed that it was Heather Mills who taught her daughter music, not her ex-husband, Sir Paul McCartney, because he cannot read music notation. McCartney and John Lennon left the job of notating their music for the Beatles to producer…