Auckland Museum announces dedicated NZ music exhibition

NZ Herald

25 May, 2016 08:00 AM2 mins to read

Items from New Zealand band Supergroove will be on display at the Auckland Museum.

Tonight the Auckland Museum announced an exhibition entitled Volume: Making Music In Aotearoa, which will open later this year on October 28.

It will be a celebration and commemoration of seven decades worth of music, musicians, and the great cultural impact they've had on New Zealand, made up of both object driven displays and immersive, interactive elements.

In collaboration with the NZ Music Hall of Fame and members of the local music community, the museum has spent months working towards this landmark homegrown exhibition, which will take visitors on a musical journey from the 1950s to today.

Part of that work has involved talking to local artists and finding out about objects - whether they're instruments, clothing, memorabilia, or handwritten lyrics - that tell a story about making music in New Zealand.

Gear-heads will be fascinated by pieces like the first synthesiser built in New Zealand - by Paul Crowther for Eddie Rayner - or an MPC sampler owned by Mu of Fat Freddy's Drop, or the mixer that Phil Bell (aka DJ Sirvere) has had since he first began DJing.

Among the instruments will be 10 special guitars, a selection of taonga puoro, and there are also some hilarious clothing items like the fluffy pink suit Andrew Fagan wore in the Mockers, or the signature tracksuits owned by Supergroove.

Visitors will also be able to interact with displays including a recording studio and a DJ-VJ booth, browse records in a 1980s record store, learn the opening riff of an iconic Kiwi song in a pub setting, or step back in time to the set of 1960s pop show C'mon.

"We're hoping people will get to have a good look at these objects that represent incredible moments in New Zealand history, alongside these fun immersive spaces," explains senior exhibition developer Victoria Travers.

"So people could come through and look at the objects and read the stories and get a big thrill out of it, but equally they can come and experience all the hands-on things, and get a real sense of what it's like to be a musician in New Zealand."