NZSM Refuses to Face the Music
Tucked away at the top of Kelburn Parade, Te Kōkī—the New Zealand School of Music (NZSM) may seem a bit cut off from the rest of the university. That was decidedly not the case on Thursday, 6 July, with over 100 musicians lending their voice or instrument to the ‘Save the NZSM’ protest concert in the Hub.
According to School of Music Director Sally-Jane Norman, the protest itself was organised by a grassroots group of concerned students and supporters of the faculty who rallied from across Wellington. “All these people just came out of the woodwork, […] it was completely overwhelming and hugely encouraging and inspiring,” Norman said.
The NZSM is facing the university’s reality of a $33 million hole, and like many other departments, is being asked to trim staff. However, the NZSM says the cuts as they have been proposed are asking too much of an already overstretched department.
While the university as a whole has identified a need to cut around 10% of staff, the current proposals have Te Kōkī losing 11 of its 34 full-time staff. The proposed cuts include the loss of nine full-time professors, associate professors, and lecturers, something that faculty members say will cripple the school’s teaching capacities.
“It still feels surreal,” says Shannon Pittaway, lecturer at the NZSM, Principal Bass Trombone of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and one of the organisers of the Save NZSM protest. “The positions that have been targeted are senior positions. This will have a trickle-down effect on everyone. These staff have worked for years at the highest levels of academia and have so much experience that will be lost.”
Shortages of qualified staff Te Kōkī are not new, but the new round of layoffs have renewed fears that the faculty will be pushed well past its breaking point. Staff workloads have steadily increased over the last seven years, with a number of key positions vacated without being filled.
Dr Martin Risely is an associate professor of classical performance, and while already overloaded with excess academic work, he has slotted into the role of the vacant school conductor for the Performance students’ opera at the end of this year—an endeavour worth hundreds of work hours. “That's only a part of what I'm doing this Trimester, and it's not even the job I was hired for.”
Especially jarring is the proposed redundancy of both of the faculty’s Musicology academics, erasing the programme from study. Musicology, the study of the history and development of music, is a core subject in tertiary Music education, and its disestablishment would require a complete restructure of Music teaching.
“The NZSM would undoubtedly lose many existing and potential students, who would elect to go to an institution that offers them a more coherent programme.” says Dr Inge van Rij, one of the Musicology academics whose job is under threat. “It should be understood that our cost contribution is actually much more significant than simply the number of Music Studies majors that we attract.”
Norman shared that she has been working closely with senior university staff on modified proposals that could help minimise the impact to teaching and learning at the NZSM. “We do recognise that the university is in a pretty deep hole, and we do have to make [an] effort like everyone else—we’re not going to pretend like we’re in an ivory musical tower.”
While the resounding beats of ‘O Fortuna’ or Aretha Franklin’s ‘Respect’ may have been the loudest part of Thursday’s performance, what was perhaps most impactful was the overwhelming sense of hope that all staff, students and supporters have brought into this fight.
“We’re on a rollercoaster, but both students and staff are being incredibly resilient and appreciably stubborn,” concluded Norman. “We know the last thing to do is to give up.”