New Year Honours: Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for Kathleen Craig

Kathleen Craig has been given an MNZM for services to music and music education.

Craig has provided more than 50 years of service to music and music education.

She was in the nationally renowned group, The Majorettes who were Mobil Song Quest winners in 1972.

She has won multiple aria competitions and has sung as soloist with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra and other regional orchestras.

Ms Craig was lead soprano alongside Dame Malvina Major and has starred in many operas and musical theatre productions.

She runs the Start Singing programme in Palmerston North which provides vocal coaching to people who don't believe they can sing, for a variety of emotional, social and physical reasons.

Ms Craig has been a foundation tutor in performance at Ucol and has taught singing at Nga Tawa in Marton, Feilding High School and Freyberg High School.

For 10 years she was a coordinator of a series of fund raisers called "Wine, Women and Song", benefiting charity groups such as the Stroke Foundation, the SPCA and Arohanui Hospice.