News of New Zealanders via Global Media

Pioneering Composer Annea Lockwood’s Common Ground

Pioneering Composer Annea Lockwood’s Common Ground

“New Zealand-born Annea Lockwood and the Brazilian Jocy de Oliveira are two composers separated by a distance that is geographical only,” Louise Gray writes for British music magazine The Wire. Their reissues, Lockwood’s Tiger…

Jamie McClennan Performs in Edinburgh

Jamie McClennan Performs in Edinburgh

New Zealand-born Jamie McClennan and Scottish folksinger Emily Smith celebrate 15 years of making music together in 2017. The pair will be appearing at the Edinburgh Folk Club, Pleasance Cabaret Bar on 20 September. “Their…

Colorado Audience Crazy for Opiuo

Colorado Audience Crazy for Opiuo

New Zealander Oscar Davey-Wraight, aka Opiuo, and his band recently played at Colorado’s Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre. According to Denver-based online lifestyle site 303 Magazine, the group’s formation “was a bit more dramatic than…

Reasons Behind the China Girl in Top of the Lake

Reasons Behind the China Girl in Top of the Lake

There’s certainly a great deal of thematic resonance in the first series of Top of the Lake and this one, beginning with women immersed in a body of water, a narrative of pregnancy secretly…

Sabryna’s the One in Los Angeles

Sabryna’s the One in Los Angeles

New Zealand-born pop singer Sabrina Salmon, aka Sabryna, is giving fans the perfect summer sendoff with her song Be The One, which has just been released in the United States. Entertainment news site Hollywood Life…

Nadia Reid Keeps Right on to End Of The Road

Nadia Reid Keeps Right on to End Of The Road

New Zealand singer-songwriter Nadia Reid, 25, is jetting in to Europe for her big summer tour stopping off at End Of The Road Festival in Wiltshire, UK where she joins such luminaries of the…

Silver Scrolls Music Industry First

Silver Scrolls Music Industry First

For the first time in its 52-year history, New Zealand’s Silver Scroll Awards feature an exclusively all-female shortlist, made up of Lorde, Bic Runga, Aldous Harding, Chelsea Jade and Nadia Reid, the Guardian reports. The…

Take a Sonic Journey in LA With Mark de Clive-Lowe

Take a Sonic Journey in LA With Mark de Clive-Lowe

Auckland-born Mark de Clive-Lowe, who now calls Los Angeles home, juggles piano, synths and live sampling with effortless fluidity. De Clive-Lowe will perform Mirai No Rekishi (未来の歴史) / History of the Future, “a sonic…

Peter King’s is the Lathe Cutter’s Way

Peter King’s is the Lathe Cutter’s Way

Mount Somers is famous for two things: its natural beauty, and being the home of Peter King Lathe Cut Records, Noel Meek writes in a feature for UK music magazine The Wire. King’s parents were…

NPR Calls On Aldous Harding for Tiny Desk Session

NPR Calls On Aldous Harding for Tiny Desk Session

“Intensity in songs often expresses itself as volume – a loud guitar, a scream, a piercing synth line. But in the case of Aldous Harding it’s in the spaces, the pauses, and her unique…

Everything Old is New for Producer Lance Ferguson

Everything Old is New for Producer Lance Ferguson

Best known as the guitarist and leader of soul-funk band the Bamboos, New Zealand-born Lance Ferguson is a workaholic and one of Australia’s most prolific musicians. Ferguson also has a spread…

Lorde – “I Never Get To Take Off The Hat.”

Lorde – “I Never Get To Take Off The Hat.”

New Zealand singer Lorde “became a household name after the release of her single Royals in 2013. Four years later, she is on the cover of Fashion Magazine’s September issue, where she talked about…

Electro-Pop Singer Theia Poised For Stardom

Electro-Pop Singer Theia Poised For Stardom

“Her name might not be that familiar around this part of the world just yet but things seem to be looking up for New Zealand singer Theia,” writes Suky Gill in an article for…

Norwegian-Kiwi Duo Anna of the North

Norwegian-Kiwi Duo Anna of the North

The Norwegian-Kiwi duo “Anna of the North is a product of heartbreak, and the recovery that comes after,” writes Roisin O’Connor in an article for The Independent. “Anna Lotterud was working…

Lorde’s Pure Heroine Album One of the Best Albums Made by Teenagers

Lorde’s Pure Heroine Album One of the Best Albums Made by Teenagers

“The 21st century has spawned a whole host of stars who achieved global success before they were even legally allowed to toast it in America,” writes Jon O’Brien for Paste…

Producer Noah Slee’s Music Superbly Infectious

Producer Noah Slee’s Music Superbly Infectious

A New Zealander with Tongan heritage, soul singer and producer Noah Slee threw himself into underground music, using it as a means for him to piece together how he truly felt about himself, Robin…

Lost Gustav Holst Scores Turn Up in Tauranga

Lost Gustav Holst Scores Turn Up in Tauranga

No one is sure how the handwritten scores of English composer Gustav Holst ended up in the archives of Tauranga’s Bay of Plenty Symphonia, Jason Daley writes for the Smithsonian magazine. A couple of years…

Hoseah Partsch to Tour With Boy George

Hoseah Partsch to Tour With Boy George

Eighteen-year-old New Zealand-born Hoseah Partsch, who made it to The Voice Australia grand finale earlier this month, is preparing to tour with his mentor Boy George in Australia later this year. Partsch, who said he’s…

Arma Del Amor Take Back the Sea

Arma Del Amor Take Back the Sea

New Zealand-born duo Arma Del Amor premiere their latest single Taking Back the Sea, “blending soulful bass with striking visuals,” EDM-culture blog Magnetic Magazine writes in a review. “Arma Del Amor is made up of…

Gin Wigmore’s Love Hate Relationship With Streaming

Gin Wigmore’s Love Hate Relationship With Streaming

The New Zealander with the mighty voice Gin Wigmore is, like so many other recording artists, frustrated by the peanuts, which rain down from the world’s leading streaming service Spotify. Or let’s call it…

Style Icon Kimbra to Perform at Dior Event

Style Icon Kimbra to Perform at Dior Event

Grammy Award-winning musician Kimbra, 27, will perform amongst a night of luxury food, wine and fashion at this year’s inaugural National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) Gala in Australia to be held on 26 August. “Kimbra…

Fazerdaze Profile Grows Throughout Europe

Fazerdaze Profile Grows Throughout Europe

Fazerdaze is New Zealand-based singer-songwriter Amelia Murray and her band who weave blissful, echo-drenched and semi-electronic production through bounding bedroom pop songs, Nick Linazasoro writes for Brighton & Hove News. Fazerdaze performs in Brighton…

Singer Nadia Reid Making Her Way to Ireland

Singer Nadia Reid Making Her Way to Ireland

New Zealand singer-songwriter Nadia Reid, 25, plays the second performance of her 34-date UK/European tour at Galway venue Róisín Dubh on 10 August. “ released the excellent Preservation this year, and is a name to…

Fat Freddy’s Drop Can’t Seem to Tour Enough

Fat Freddy’s Drop Can’t Seem to Tour Enough

Arguably New Zealand’s most famous band, Fat Freddy’s Drop has just played another sold out show in Amsterdam. Communications strategist New Zealander Lucy von Sturmer talked with the band in the Netherlands’ capital where…

Producer Joel Little Dominates Billboard Charts

Producer Joel Little Dominates Billboard Charts

Auckland-born writer and producer Joel Little, 34, has his name in the Billboard music charts next to three different albums in the top 15, Stuff reports. Little worked on tracks on Lorde’s Melodrama album, Imagine…

Aldous Harding Making a Big Name for Herself

Aldous Harding Making a Big Name for Herself

A lot of people are starting to talk about New Zealand singer-songwriter Aldous Harding. The 26-year-old talked to the San Francisco Chronicle on a stop in Brooklyn, New York on her current tour of…

Melodrama Debuts Atop Billboard 200 Chart

Melodrama Debuts Atop Billboard 200 Chart

Lorde has notched her first No 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, with her second full-length album, Melodrama, debuting atop the list, Keith Caulfield reports for Billboard magazine. The Billboard 200 chart ranks the…

San Luis Obispo Symphony Appoints Andrew Sewell

San Luis Obispo Symphony Appoints Andrew Sewell

Andrew Sewell brought his baton to the San Luis Obispo Symphony back in 2016 and now the New Zealand-born conductor is staying put in California. The Symphony recently announced the appointment of Sewell as its…

Singer Jon Stevens Hits the London Stage

Singer Jon Stevens Hits the London Stage

“Aristocrat of Australian rock, five-date tour of London at the legendary 100 Club in Oxford Street,” Russell Higham reports for TNT Magazine. “The former front man of…

Melodrama Wins High Praise Across the Planet

Melodrama Wins High Praise Across the Planet

Lorde’s sophomore studio album Melodrama has been released and critics throughout the world are singing the 20-year-old’s praises. In the New Yorker, reviewer Carrie Battan writes that it is “difficult to say whether Lorde…

How Lorde Became the Life of the Party

How Lorde Became the Life of the Party

Playing to tens of thousands of people at the main stage of Coachella is a disquieting proposition for a self-described introvert, TIME magazine’s Sam Lansky writes. But Lorde is making some of the most…

Lorde’s New Songs Definitely About Personal Life

Lorde’s New Songs Definitely About Personal Life

‘I’m really a shy, library person,” says Lorde, who adds, “I’m an introvert, a writer –just trying to translate what’s inside my chest.” The 20-year-old Auckland-born singer sits down with Vanity Fair’s Lisa Robinson…

Flying Nun’s Look Blue Go Purple Reissue Bewitched

Flying Nun’s Look Blue Go Purple Reissue Bewitched

Dunedin band Look Blue Go Purple’s 1985 Bewitched has just been re-released, and US online music magazine Pitchfork deems it one of the “best” recent reissues. “In the 1980s, the women of Look Blue Go…

Aldous Harding Review – A Star In The Making

Aldous Harding Review – A Star In The Making

“New Zealand’s latest export is a compellingly theatrical performer of her extraordinary songs,” writes Kitty Empire in an article for The Guardian. “Aldous Harding fixes a person in the front row of this tiny…

Pop’s Outsider Lorde Covers Rolling Stone

Pop’s Outsider Lorde Covers Rolling Stone

In a cover story for Rolling Stone magazine, Lorde talks about growing up in the spotlight following her hit debut Pure Heroine, and why her new Melodrama, out on 16 June, is the work…

Introducing Rousseau’s Dark Pop Identity

Introducing Rousseau’s Dark Pop Identity

Independently released in April, Wellingtonian Clare Barrett Rousseau’s debut EP hello, i know you’re busy “is the ideal entrance, introducing the many shades of Rousseau’s dark pop identity while leaving us hungry for more,”…

Lorde is ELLE’s Dior Cover Girl

Lorde is ELLE’s Dior Cover Girl

In the news yet again this week, just ahead of the release of her long-awaited second album Melodrama, Auckland-born mega star Lorde, 20, dresses up in a Dior jumpsuit for the cover of ELLE’s…

Aldous Harding’s Songs Won’t Be Pinned Down

Aldous Harding’s Songs Won’t Be Pinned Down

Aldous Harding, 26, shies away from explaining the quiet, cryptic, utterly arresting songs on Party, her second album and first American release. Harding, who is from New Zealand, was in New York at the…

Christopher Marshall’s Cosmos on in Florida

Christopher Marshall’s Cosmos on in Florida

New Zealand composer Christopher Marshall’s Cosmos, a 20-minute work highlighting the history of flight, will have its world premiere as part of the Space Coast Symphony Orchestra 2017-18 season on 27-28 May in Orlando,…

Robyn Loau Reunites With Her Girlfriends

Robyn Loau Reunites With Her Girlfriends

Nineties Australian girl band Girlfriend, whose frontwoman was New Zealander Robyn Loau (pictured centre top), are reforming to mark the 25th anniversary of their No 1 hit Take it From Me. The band, which was…

Weissenborn Player Thomas Oliver Off on Tour

Weissenborn Player Thomas Oliver Off on Tour

Wellington-based musician Thomas Oliver, 31, talks to Australian independent online music publication, The AU Review about the inspirations behind his new self-produced album Floating in the Darkness and his upcoming local tour followed by…

Soprano Natasha Wilson Sings With Acrobats

Soprano Natasha Wilson Sings With Acrobats

Acclaimed Australian Brandenburg Orchestra has teamed up with Auckland soprano Natasha Wilson and circus company Circa to present Spanish Baroque at the City Recital Hall in Sydney. Wilson, 23, was invited by Brandenburg artistic director…

Fazerdaze Releases Confident Dreamy Debut

Fazerdaze Releases Confident Dreamy Debut

Morningside, the “accomplished” debut album of Auckland’s Fazerdaze, aka Amelia Murray, “is like having the door to a house opened for you, casually strolling in and taking your own time to find a comfortable…

Kane Strang’s New Album Out in June

Kane Strang’s New Album Out in June

After sharing a string of ace singles over the last few months, New Zealander Kane Strang has announced that his new album, Two Hearts and No Brain will be out…

Fis Teams with Maori Sound Artist Rob Thorne

Fis Teams with Maori Sound Artist Rob Thorne

“Berlin-based producer Fis (aka Olly Peryman) shifts focus back to his home of New Zealand for Clear Stones, a collaborative album with veteran Maori sound artist Rob Thorne due on Subtext,” Miles…

Lorde Makes Sophisticated Return at Coachella

Lorde Makes Sophisticated Return at Coachella

“Lorde used her late-evening (Coachella) slot to showcase material from her forthcoming album, Melodrama. Starting off with a portion of her lead single, Green Light, she performed staring straight down…

Lorde talks Melodrama at New York Diner

Lorde talks Melodrama at New York Diner

Lorde owns a house in Auckland, where she grew up, but for the better part of the last year she has been living at different hotels around New York, trying…

Soulful New Video for Singer Janine

Soulful New Video for Singer Janine

New Zealand-born soul singer Janine, formerly known as Janine and the Mixtape, is back with a “heart-tugging visual for Don’t Love Me,” Adelle Platon reports for Billboard. “As previously heard on the emotional offerings like 2015’s…

Aldous Harding Announces Party and Tour Dates

Aldous Harding Announces Party and Tour Dates

New Zealand singer-songwriter Aldous Harding will release her sophomore album, Party on 19 May. After sharing the striking single Horizon, Harding has also revealed European and US tour dates, beginning with a performance at The…

Kane Strang Going on First European Tour

Kane Strang Going on First European Tour

“New Zealander is currently in the midst of a huge tour of the United States, but that hasn’t stopped him announcing his first-ever European shows,” DIY magazine reports. “ was…

Online Star Dylan Rass Joins Australian Festival

Online Star Dylan Rass Joins Australian Festival

At only 18, singer and social media star New Zealand-born Dylan Rass fits the bill for New South Wales’ Bring It On! Festival – young, ambitious and talented. Rass is the latest in a growing…

Violinist Alexandra Lomeiko Performs in Worthing

Violinist Alexandra Lomeiko Performs in Worthing

Christchurch-born violinist Alexandra Lomeiko recently performed the Beethoven Violin Concerto with Worthing Philharmonic Orchestra. Chichester Observer journalist Phil Hewitt writes: “Lomeiko was born in 1991 into a family of musicians and started playing at the…

Tami Neilson Has Canadian Fans Wanting More

Tami Neilson Has Canadian Fans Wanting More

In the opening slot on a recent North American tour with Canadian singer-songwriter Colin James was Tami Neilson, a Mississauga-bred, New Zealand-based dynamo whose 30-minute sets created a buzz with audiences. Neilson and her…

Nadia Reid’s Lovelorn Folk Perfectly Crafted

Nadia Reid’s Lovelorn Folk Perfectly Crafted

New Zealand singer Nadia Reid, 25, has “decidedly upped the ante” on her second album Preservation, according to Guardian reviewer Dave Simpson. “ ethereal, pensive vocals are cast against plangent folk-guitar shapes, but there is…

Lorde Joyfully Crashes Into Next Chapter

Lorde Joyfully Crashes Into Next Chapter

Lorde’s comeback single Green Light, is an “upbeat announcement of change,” according to the Atlantic, one of many international publications praising the “inventive” pop singer’s new direction. “People have been waiting for Lorde’s future for…

Nadia Reid’s New LP an Ode to Self-Reflection

Nadia Reid’s New LP an Ode to Self-Reflection

Nadia Reid’s new video for The Arrow and The Aim, taken from her forthcoming album Preservation, was shot in an abandoned house surrounded by stunning landscapes in Mt Somers, just outside of Christchurch. “I guess…