Each year the New Zealand Music Commission conducts a mentoring programme in which industry specialists covering areas such as touring, booking, contracts, marketing, publicity, company structure and general artist management visit schools in order to share their expertise with students. At least sixty schools participate in this opportunity annually. There are always more schools applying for funding than available funding, so we are fortunate that Rangiora High School was chosen as one of the recipients in 2020.

Over two days (15-16 September) music students from Year 11-13 worked with our mentors, Sacha Vee and Katie Thompson, to create original songs from scratch. Both mentors have a wealth of experience in the music industry. Sacha is head of Songwriting at the Ara Institute of Canterbury and started her own music academy, SOLE, in 2018. West Coast Singer-songwriter Katie Thompson has been honing her craft for a number of years now with her third studio album, Bittersweet, being released in 2019.

After two days creating and honing their original songs, each group performed their song at the conclusion of the two day course. The ability of these collaborative groups to create original songs in such a short time frame illustrates the energy and passion which they invested into creating these compositions. Responses from students were overwhelmingly positive, and several of the groups are planning to record their songs over the coming weeks.