Writers | Age (The)
7 April 2016
New Zealand-born journalist and author Maria Lewis has morphed from a crime reporter on the Gold Coast to pop-culture extraordinaire, has nabbed an international publishing deal and caught Quentin Tarantino’s attention, all by the…
Music | Willamette Week
6 April 2016
Founder of Vancouver-based cassette label 1080p, New Zealander Richard MacFarlane is making a name for himself for a brand, which “uniquely inspires producers while consuming the attention spans of aesthete trend-seekers in electronic music,”…
Writers | Time Out Hong Kong
5 April 2016
Hong Kong-based New Zealander Blair Reeve, who mentors students at Chinese University in creative writing, has just published children’s book Hogart the Hedgehog Turns Nink, “an enormously fun book, and a gratifying one to…
Media | Paste Magazine
1 April 2016
Jemaine Clement returns to radio playing Captain Cook’s botanist Lord Joseph Banks in the podcast The Mysterious Secrets of Uncle Bertie’s Botanarium, which is currently airing on the Howl app.
Written by fellow New Zealander…
Music | Guardian (The)
31 March 2016
Album after album, the Kingston upon Thames solo artist, Wellington-born Peter Bruntnell produces rich and refined song-craft, yet hardly anyone has heard of him. Could this be his time? The Guardian’s Angus Batey considers…
Film & TV | Sydney Morning Herald (The)
30 March 2016
Gwendoline Christie, who plays popular Game of Thrones character Brienne of Tarth, will join Mad Men star Elisabeth Moss in a new season of the much-praised Jane Campion TV show Top of the Lake,…
Visual Arts | Guardian (The)
30 March 2016
Look beyond the traditional spaces and what emerges are a group of Generation Y artists who are arguably more avant garde than ever, like New Zealander Simon Denny, 33. The Guardian enters a world…
Music | Guardian (The)
28 March 2016
David Bowie believed the young New Zealand singer Lorde was “the future of music”.
“David really liked Lorde. They had a few wonderful moments together,” said Mike Garson, Bowie’s longtime pianist.
Lorde was chosen to perform…
Film & TV | News.com.au
24 March 2016
Just how did the star of Grey’s Anatomy New Zealander Martin Henderson, 41, get so comfortable with the slings and arrows of a business which can literally plaster you sky high on billboards one…
Film & TV | Daily Mail
23 March 2016
In an interview with Australia’s Sunrise breakfast television programme, New Zealand actor Lucy Lawless, who shot to fame with her role as Xena over 20 years ago, said she was more than happy to…
Visual Arts | Sydney Morning Herald (The)
23 March 2016
Curator and art writer New Zealander Serena Bentley creates a dialogue between two Melbourne painters – Kate Smith and Meagan Wyke – and three Aucklanders – Schaeffer Lemalu, Patrick Lundberg, Campbell Patterson – in…
Music | Forbes | YouTube
22 March 2016
Shirley Setia, a 22-year old Aucklander whose family hails from India, has attracted a large Indian and international following singing cover versions of Bollywood hits, Forbes contributor Rob Cain reports.
The diminutive mezzo-soprano, who calls…
Opera | Bendigo Advertiser (The)
22 March 2016
New Zealand-born performer Dame Kiri Te Kanawa will perform a series of concerts in Australia later this year. Te Kanawa’s performances in Bendigo and Ballarat could be one of the last chances for people…
Film & TV | Vice
19 March 2016
Taika Waititi spoke with Vice about his new film Hunt for the Wilderpeople, which stars Julian Dennison, Sam Neill, Rachel House, Oscar Kightley and Rhys Darby and is based on Wild Pork and Watercress…
Film & TV | Variety Magazine
18 March 2016
New Zealand actor Sam Neill will star in the AMC television network drama The Son, playing the patriarch of a Texas family in a multigenerational story of the clan’s rise and fall.
Production on the…
Music | Sydney Morning Herald (The)
16 March 2016
Pip Brown, better known as Ladyhawke, ARIA-winning maker of synth-pop hits such as Paris is Burning and My Delirium, is back with a new album. Wild Things was created in Los Angeles and is…
Music | Los Angeles Times
16 March 2016
“The orchestra scene in Southern California is keen for refreshment,” according to classical music critic Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times, who reviews the 29-year-old New Zealand conductor Gemma News’ recent “speed date”…
Film & TV | Deadline
13 March 2016
Kiwi actor Jono Kenyon has landed the male lead in Toast – ABC’s hybrid comedy pilot from Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers’ Shondaland – alongside Grey’s Anatomy alumna Tessa Ferrer.
“So excited to announce my next project! Lead role in an…
Film & TV | Daily Express
13 March 2016
New Zealander Mark Vette, a professional animal psychologist and zoologist, is currently working on new British television show, Dogs Might Fly. Vette, who taught Monty, the giant schnauzer, to drive a car,…
Film & TV | Vogue
12 March 2016
New Zealand-born Lesley Vanderwalt, who won both an Oscar for hairstyling and make-up at this year’s Academy Awards and the equivalent at the 2016 BAFTAs, talks to Vogue about bringing Mad Max: Fury Road’s…
Film & TV | New York Times (The)
11 March 2016
The 2013 feature film by Mexican director Dana Rotberg, White Lies, is “quiet, graceful, stately and infused with slow tension,” according to New York Times reviewer Paul Wester.
“Set in rural New Zealand, the movie…
Film & TV | Los Angeles Times
10 March 2016
Quentin Tarantino’s “favourite stunt double,” New Zealander Zoë Bell, 37, “sturdily stands in for herself” in Camino, a survival-thriller set in the jungles of Colombia circa 1985.
The Los Angeles Times reviews the film:
“Bell plays…
Music | Entertainment Weekly
10 March 2016
The Flight of the Conchords return to stages in the United States playing at nearly 30 locations across the country in June and July, the first time the duo has toured since co-headlining 2013’s…
Opera | Advertiser (The)
10 March 2016
The “pin-up boy of Australian opera”, New Zealand grand baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes, famous for his portrayal of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, talks with the Advertiser about how he unwinds and where he loves to…
Visual Arts | Sydney Morning Herald (The)
5 March 2016
New Zealand born Francis Upritchard’s exhibition Jealous Saboteurs is on at Monash University’s Museum of Art (MUMA) in Melbourne. Robert Nelson reviews the show for the Sydney Morning Herald.
“Upritchard has modified a group of…
Music | Irish News (The)
4 March 2016
Former artistic manager at the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra and BBC Philharmonic boss, New Zealander Richard Wigley, 55, is the new managing director of the Ulster Orchestra.
Wigley talks about “channelling the energy” of the orchestra…
Film & TV | Hollywood Reporter
1 March 2016
Eighteen-year-old New Zealand-born KJ Apa, best known for his Shortland Street role as Kane Jenkins, has been cast as Archie Andrews in US television network series Riverdale.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Riverdale had difficulty…
Writers | Japan Times (The)
1 March 2016
“In the 1930s, a translator of Japanese literature from New Zealand was jailed and tortured by the Japanese police. His name was Max Bickerton or, more fully, William Maxwell Bickerton,” Japanese poet and translator…
Music | Daily Beast (The) | Guardian (The) | Telegraph (The)
29 February 2016
Lorde’s tribute to her hero David Bowie at this year’s BRIT Awards has been called “dignified”, “powerful” and “heartbreaking”. Singing Life on Mars with Bowie’s own backing band, Lorde’s was an “acid, disaffected take…
Media | The New Yorker
29 February 2016
Emmy Award-winning auteur Jill Soloway, creator of the gender- and genre-bending TV series Transparent, recently announced her next project: an adaptation of I Love Dick, Chris Kraus’s psycho-sexual epistolary novel about a married, failed…
Film & TV | Guardian (The)
26 February 2016
“Films about mute piano players embroiled in erotic love triangles never did become a burgeoning genre. Perhaps that’s because it’s virtually impossible to imagine another equalling writer/director Jane Campion’s 1993 magnum opus: an extraordinarily…
Architecture | Smithsonian Magazine
25 February 2016
“For Murray Houston, 3 February 1931 started out like any ordinary day. The now 91-year-old New Zealander was sitting inside the small wooden schoolhouse he attended in the coastal town of Napier, when the…
Film & TV | Los Angeles Times
24 February 2016
Actor Melanie Lynskey, the “genial” New Zealand-born star of HBO’s comedy-drama series Togetherness, is profiled in the Los Angeles Times.
Lynskey’s expressions are somehow familiar, a visage seen in her countless television and film roles…
Film & TV | Berlinale | Hollywood Reporter
24 February 2016
Tammy Davis’ hip-hop drama Born to Dance, a “hidden gem” at this year’s Berlinale, has become the most unlikely of box-office hits Down Under.
Born to Dance brought in more than $1 million in theatres…
Film & TV | Guardian (The)
23 February 2016
“Dave Grohl is only the latest to have revealed his rejection by David Bowie.” The Guardian also includes New Zealand’s very own Flight of the Conchords in its list of “10 of Bowie’s very…
Visual Arts | UNO Magazine
23 February 2016
“In fact, it was heavenly,” said Grafton, Auckland-born New York artist Max Gimblett, 80, on being invested as Officer of the Order of Merit Award by Governor General Sir Jerry Matapere.
“I thought it would…
Dance | BBC
21 February 2016
Anna Cochrane, a New Zealand paramedic, has performed a static trapeze act while suspended on a hot air balloon at an altitude of more than 3,000m, in a bid to break the world record,…
Music | The 405
20 February 2016
“It seems as though Marlon Williams is a storyteller, first and foremost. There’s a character who lives within the fluidity of each song he sings, driven by every cord he strums,” writes Daniel Harris…
Music | Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra | Hamilton Spectator (The)
19 February 2016
Conductor Gemma New made her long-awaited mainstage debut in Ontario as the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra’s new music director, receiving a standing ovation from a huge crowd.
Classical music writer for the Hamilton Spectator Leonard Turnevicius…
Writers | Guardian (The)
19 February 2016
The “modern masterpiece” Owls Do Cry, written by New Zealand author Janet Frame in 1957, “about siblings struggling with money, health and grief still has the power to unnerve and astonish,” writes Claire Hazelton…
Music | Billboard
18 February 2016
“There are singers, and there’s Gin Wigmore,” according to Billboard. “The New Zealand-born, Los Angeles-based artist’s raw, bluesy voice is so distinctive, some pundits are convinced it’s only a matter of time before the…
Film & TV | Straits Times (The)
17 February 2016
Rose McIver, the New Zealand actress who plays crime-solving zombie, Liv Moore, says the character has become an unlikely role model for many fans, which may explain why iZombie has been ratings gold for…
Film & TV | New York Times (The)
17 February 2016
Irish emigrant saga Brooklyn, which was produced by New Zealander Finola Dwyer, was named best British picture on Sunday at the British Academy Film Awards.
“The British awards, known as BAFTAs, are considered a portent…
Music | Guardian (The)
16 February 2016
Marlon Williams’ self-titled debut album is described as “delicious, oddly uplifting misery”, in a review written by Michael Hann for the Guardian.
“It’s hard to work out quite how the album from the young New…
Visual Arts | New York Times (The)
16 February 2016
In the commune-esque home of New Zealand-born artist Francis Upritchard and her husband, Italian designer Martino Gamper, the colourful trappings of life and work are uniquely integrated. The New York Times is invited into…
Visual Arts | Ocula
15 February 2016
Simon Denny has had a stellar year. The Berlin-based artist had his first significant United States museum solo show with MoMA PS1 presenting The Innovator’s Dilemma, he represented New Zealand at the 56th Venice Biennale…
Film & TV | Guardian (The)
15 February 2016
The New Zealand movie Mahana/The Patriarch is one of the ten movies at the 66th Berlin Film Festival The Guardian is most looking forward to.
The Patriarch, set in the 1960s, was shot…
Film & TV | Northwest Boomer & Senior News
13 February 2016
“To the unaware, movie titles like Whale Rider and Once Were Warriors are well-made, entertaining yarns about Maoris. But to Charles Eggen, 78, they rank among his favorites — not just because they’re good…
Film & TV | Screen Daily
11 February 2016
Celebrating six BAFTA nominations and three Oscar nominations, Wildgaze Films duo Wellington-born Finola Dwyer and Briton Amanda Posey look back at Brooklyn’s journey and ahead to their future slate and ambitions.
Brooklyn was launched at…
Architecture | News 4
11 February 2016
New Zealand-born architect Michael Anderson never thought he would call Buffalo, in New York State home, but after four years at university there in the late 90s, something started to grow on him.
At 6’8,…
Music | Village Voice (The)
9 February 2016
“If there’s anyone who proves that singer-songwriters don’t need a Nashville or Memphis address to make authentic, arresting country music, it’s 25-year-old crooner Marlon Williams,” Village Voice music editor Lindsey Rhoades says.
“Growing…
Film & TV | Hollywood Reporter | Sundance Film Festival | Variety Magazine
5 February 2016
New investigative documentary, the “engrossing” Tickled, co-directed by New Zealanders David Farrier and Dylan Reeve, has received rave reviews from critics and punters after its premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Farrier and Dylan Reeve’s…
Music | San Luis Obispo Tribune (The)
4 February 2016
Andy Morley-Hall is a member of the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra, an eight-piece band that combines high-energy ukulele covers of classic pop and rock songs by the likes of Blondie, Cyndi Lauper and Salt-N-Pepa…
Film & TV | Wired
3 February 2016
“As a director, got an impeccable ability to balance painful earnestness with biting humour,” Angela Watercutter writes for WIRED. “And as a comedy writer and actor, he produces jokes that land…
Visual Arts | Atlantic (The) | Foreign Policy
3 February 2016
New Zealand-born Robin Hammond is one of six photographers featured in a series called Conflict, which explores the testimonies of professional conflict photographers and looks at how they engage with and seek to understand…
Film & TV | Guardian (The) | Hollywood Reporter | Sundance Film Festival
2 February 2016
Taika Waititi’s film adaptation of Barry Crump’s Wild Pork and Watercress, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, which made its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, is a “deliciously good time at the movies,” according to…