Te Kura’s Young Musicians programme has been given the thumbs up by industry heavyweights, and two songwriting students at Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu have had their own songs released under the school initiative.

Aidan Ripley and Natalie Martin were chosen to take part in Te Kura’s inaugural songwriting initiative. Te Kura Central North kaiako (teacher) Trevor Faville, says the goal of the programme has been to take selected ākonga (students) who have been writing and recording their own songs.

“From there we walk them through the process of mastering, promoting, and releasing a song to streaming platforms like Spotify.”

The first group of ākonga have been guided through processes such as owning their master recordings, registering for royalty collection, setting up a digital presence, designing cover art and promotional material and managing their own digital distribution.

“Essentially each student has become their own record label,” Faville says.

Local music industry personalities including Mike Chunn from Play it Strange have given the initiative the thumbs-up. Paul Martin from the band Devilskin says the songwriting initiative is a “stroke of absolute genius”.