Richard A. Betts's profile photo

Richard A. Betts

Auckland

Writer and Editor at Freelance

Columnist at New Zealand Listener

Nasty, brutish and short. Columnist, @nzlistener, other words elsewhere. Now mostly to be found @ https://t.co/auh2pjHxvs

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Articles

  • The World Choir Games becomes a television series

    2 weeks ago | nzherald.co.nz | Richard A. Betts

    Kaitāia Community Voices at the 2024 World Choir Games. Photo / Ihaka Korewha “He’s a cocky little shit,” says Dr Opeloge Ah Sam affectionately in episode one of Choir Games. Ah Sam’s mild opprobrium is directed at Kees, a 17-year-old mechanic who happens to have an attractive tenor voice that the choir director, known to all as Ope, is trying to slip into the Kaitāia Community Voices.

  • Top honour for NZ conductor Reuben Brown

    1 month ago | nzherald.co.nz | Richard A. Betts

    As birthdays go, Reuben Brown’s 25th was pretty good. It was the day he was named New Zealand assistant conductor-in-residence 2025, which means he’s working with Auckland Philharmonia, Christchurch Symphony and Dunedin Symphony Orchestras, and shadowing Auckland Phil’s music director, Giordano Bellincampi. “It was like a Hollywood movie,” Brown recalls.

  • Why I’ll miss the cult-like group that vowed to listen to 107 of Haydn’s symphonies

    1 month ago | nzherald.co.nz | Richard A. Betts

    Austrian composer Franz Joseph Haydn. Photo / Getty Images I am uncoupled and unmoored. #A-Haydn-A-Day is over and suddenly life is emptier. Readers of this column may recall the cult-like group that gathered on the social media platform Bluesky, determined to listen to every one of what turns out to be 107 symphonies.

  • Bowing in the wind: NZ String Quartet prepares to dance

    1 month ago | nzherald.co.nz | Richard A. Betts

    Gillian Ansell: “Rhythm’s a huge part of what we do.” Photo / supplied ‘It’s fun to be around dancers,” says Gillian Ansell, violist in the New Zealand String Quartet. The group she co-founded is joining the New Zealand Dance Company for 100 Winds, Taupō Hau Rau (March 29-April 5), a fascinating, too-brief three-city Chamber Music New Zealand tour conceived and choreographed by NZDC artistic director Moss Te Ururangi Patterson.

  • He made it big in the dotcom era, now he’s making music for Ukraine

    2 months ago | nzherald.co.nz | Richard A. Betts

    The Manukau Symphony Orchestra will perform The Resolute, written by Adrien de Croy. Photo / Tadashi Jokagi There are precedents. Scientists and mathematicians and the like, who are also gifted musicians. The composer Borodin was one. Queen guitarist Brian May is now famously Sir Brian May, astrophysicist. Add to the list New Zealand software engineer/composer Adrien de Croy, whose Symphony No.1, The Resolute, is premiered by Manukau Symphony Orchestra on March 15.

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Richard Betts
Richard Betts @RicardaoNZ
20 Dec 24

RT @marcdaalder: Christopher Luxon was absent for the first reading of the Treaty Principles Bill, didn't speak to the hīkoi the week after…

Richard Betts
Richard Betts @RicardaoNZ
19 Dec 24

RT @AppleClassical: Happy Birthday, Bill! 🎉 Conductor and harpsichordist WIlliam Christie has assembled a team of young musicians to help…

Richard Betts
Richard Betts @RicardaoNZ
12 Dec 24

I made .@Heloise_Werner's Close-Ups the .@nzlistener's classical album of the year. Anyone got something I need to hear? https://t.co/RyuHIC9SUH