Exciting NZ-UK Outcome for Kotuku
Seventeen year old Titus Alapati (left and Jese Peritaki doing the hala during the Kotuku Choir tour of the UK. Reformed gang leader and very talented vocalist Titus, used his leadership skills to great effect during the tour and is now acting as student leader, coordinating practices and upcoming concerts. Joining the multi-national Kotuku Choir was instrument for Titus turning his life around, he says, and the trip with 23 of his fellow talented teenage students has been his "rebirth". Photo: Taylor Griffin.16 March 2008
A combined Kotuku Tiffin Choir tour of New Zealand in 2009 is the exciting outcome of the Wellington-based Kotuku Choir's recent tour to the UK, which was supported by a NZ-UK Link Foundation New Zealand Discretionary Award.
Also new this issue is the announcement of the 2007 Elman Poole Music Fellow: Anastasiya Filippochkina of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, already in London playing with the South Bank Sinfonia. Thanks to two new NZ-UK Link Foundation New Zealand Discretionary Fellowships, a new media Fellowship in conjunction with the New Zealand Guild of Agricultural Journalists and Communicators has been made possible and the Choir of the Wellington Cathedral of St Paul will be heading off to the UK in July.
The newsletter also reports that applications have opened for the 2008 Benfield/NZ-UK Link Reinsurance Scholarship, the 2008 NZ-UK Link Foundation's New Zealand Discretionary Awards and the search is also on for the 2008 Clark Collection/Creative NZ Scholar. Applications for young teachers to join the 2008 Linking Minds open in April. It also invites more New Zealanders to become Friends of the NZ-UK Link.