Important milestones in the Society’s history

The Waikanae Music Society has helped to promote the image nationwide of Kapiti as a centre of the arts. Other musical groups have followed and have built on this image, but none with a history that spans over a quarter of a century of achievement.

Our 40th Anniversary Commission in 2018, supported by the Lion Foundation and Wellington Community Trust, was Salina Fisher’s “Coastlines”, taking inspiration from the Waikanae landscape. The work, performed by Donald Armstrong’s Amici band of prominent NZSO musicians, was one of the highlights of a great concert year.

Salina Fisher is young composer who is one of this country’s most exciting new voices, having won the prestigious Sounz Contemporary Award two years in a row and has been honoured with a 2017 New Generation Award from the NZ Arts Foundation, and a recipient of a Waikanae Music Society Charitable Trust scholarship.

The commissioning of a new New Zealand chamber music piece (with funding from Creative New Zealand) to mark the society’s 25th Anniversary in 2003. This work was premiered at the society’s concert on 8 August, 2004, before a large audience including the composer Jack Body, the Chair of Creative New Zealand, the General Manager and Artistic Manager of Chamber Music New Zealand, the Chair of SOUNZ and the music critic from the Dominion Post (See enclosed review.)

Participation in many community festivals and events, including presenting concerts as part of the International Festival of the Arts “Out and About in Kapiti” programme in 2000 and 2002, and the regular provision of a pianist and piano for the Waikanae Anzac Day Service for well over a decade

The 10th Anniversary competition for school age musicians in 1988, the prize money assisting the young winner with her ensuing studies in the United States.

The purchase of a first class grand piano in 1983 after several years of intensive fundraising.