Upbeat

Auckland theatre group Bits and Pieces Ensemble discuss topics often seen as taboo, from menstruation to women’s perspective of sex, their bodies and childbirth. Read more Audio

Sydney based New Zealand tenor Jonathan Abernethy, who has been excelling with Opera Australia, returns to perform in his home town of Wellington for the first time since crossing the ditch. He’s… Read more Audio

24 school choirs from around the country will be hitting the right notes this weekend at the Big Sing finals in Dunedin. Judge Debra Shearer-Dirié explains what the groups need to do to stand out from… Read more Audio

Stephen Layton, Director of Music at Trinity College, Cambridge, returns to the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra with a typically ingenious programme, putting music of today in the context of music of… Read more Audio

PR guru and Fashion Week veteran Paul Blomfield answers the big questions about fashion week in our Art of Etiquette series. Is it all air kisses and “oh darlings”? Can I sit wherever I like? Is it ok… Read more Audio

Tudor Consort’s former Music Director Alastair Carey directs a concert which puts together four remarkable choral works all with the concept of "lux perpetua",  or eternal light at their heart. Read more Audio

Wolfgang Schmidt was a judge for the first Wallace International Cello Competition held last night in Hamilton. There’s a wonderful serendipity here: Wolfgang was himself the winner of the first Adam… Read more Audio

Stuart Maunder from New Zealand Opera talks about a fundraising concert for soprano Anna Leese and her husband Stefano Guidi, who has Motor Neurone Disease. The concert will raise funds for the couple… Read more Audio

New Zealand Soprano Joanne Roughton-Arnold premieres a one woman opera in London this week.  Iris Dreaming is based on the life of New Zealand writer and pioneering feminist, Iris Wilkinson, who wrote… Read more Audio

The Piano is a world-class centre for music and the arts which opened recently in Christchurch. Maja Burry talks to Director Bronwyn Bijl, Architect Alec Bruce and Sound Consultant John Farren about… Read more Audio

Australian choreographer Lina Limosani is working with the New Zealand Dance Company on her dance Whispers from Pandora's Box. It’s been described as “ Twisted, perverse, outrageously in your face… Read more Audio

Michael Houstoun talks about his new interest in Bach’s Preludes and Fugues. He plays the complete Book II in the first concert in the Judith Clark Memorial Piano Series this weekend at the New… Read more Audio