In our Meet the Board series we invite you to sit down and learn more about each SOUNZ board member. Today we introduce Board member | Te Poari Kaitiaki Anthony Healey.
Tell us a bit yourself
Ko Taupiri te maunga.
Ko Waikato te awa.
Ko Tainui te waka.
Ko Ngati Naho te iwi.
Nō Tāmaki Makaurau ahau.
Ko Anthony Healey tōku ingoa.
I am a husband (to my wife Marissa, a visual artist currently working in the film industry), and father to 3 children, Willow, Saffron and Bede all of whom are keen music fans. My mother was a ballet dancer who trained and danced in the Royal Ballet in London in the 1950’s, then married my father and had 4 children, me and my 3 siblings. My two sisters are a choreographer/filmmaker and actress, respectively and my younger brother an architect in Melbourne. I studied law at University of Auckland and fell into the world of music and copyright because of my love of music. I have been the Head, NZ Division of APRA AMCOS (an organisation supporting New Zealand’s songwriters and composers) for some 20 years allowing me to blend my profession with my passion for music and the people that make it.
What is one of your earliest musical memories?
Sitting in the back of a ballet class doing homework while either my mother taught, or my sisters took lessons or perhaps, still with a ballet theme an old LP of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf.
What do you think makes the music of Aotearoa New Zealand unique?
A sound and a form that connects to the land and our place in the South Pacific and determines the way we view ourselves in relation to the rest of the world.
Why SOUNZ?
My role at APRA can sometimes require a firm focus on the interplay between commerce and music. Music though is more than that. Music has power and we need to embrace it in all its forms, support it and encourage those that make it. SOUNZ is uniquely placed to do all that. At SOUNZ we can support those composers who make all the music that makes Aotearoa unique.
What is the importance of music in society?
Musicians have the mandate or the power as artists to change the world around us through the music that they make. It shows us where we’re from and hopefully the direction we are going. The way we view that power and recognise its importance shapes us as a society. I want us to embrace the new and the unique and always encourage new boundaries to be pushed. Hopefully that makes us a more respectful, open and considerate world.