Hundreds of young voices will once again fill the Addison Theatre at Baycourt later this year – but the work behind Tauranga’s much-loved Primary Schools Music Festival is already well underway.

Now in its 70th year, the festival brings together more than 1000 students from 32 primary and intermediate schools across the Bay of Plenty. They will perform over five nights in what has become one of the region’s longest-running and most significant community arts events.

A previous Tauranga Primary Schools Music Festival at Baycourt. Photo / Supplied

This year’s theme, Dream Big, reflects both the hopes of the children on stage and the vision that first launched the festival seven decades ago.

“The festival itself started as a dream 70 years ago,” said co-director and conductor Rachael McKoy, a teacher at Bethlehem College. “And here we are now, still going strong, still giving children this incredible opportunity to perform on a professional stage.”

McKoy and fellow co-director and conductor Jeremy Hantler, the music teacher at Matua School, are already deep into planning – selecting songs, writing harmonies and creating arrangements for the massed choirs.

“We’re choosing about 10 core songs that tie into the theme of Dream Big – songs about reaching for more, trying your best, and believing in yourself,” McKoy said. “At the same time, we have to think very carefully about vocal range, age, and accessibility.”

Years 4-8

Students taking part range from Year 4-8, meaning arrangements must suit developing voices while still sounding rich and exciting.

“We write many of the arrangements ourselves,” McKoy said. “Usually two-part harmonies, with opportunities for soloists. We want to showcase the beautiful singers we have.”

Co-directors and conductors of the Tauranga Primary Schools Music Festival, Rachael McKoy and Jeremy Hantler, are preparing music for this year’s festival. Photo / Jo Jones

Each participating school also performs its own choir items on the night, with six or seven schools featured per concert. In total, audiences can expect between 15-20 songs each evening, combining massed choir numbers with individual school performances. Accompanists will be Bethlehem College music teacher Andrea Pooley and Tauranga Intermediate music specialist Sonja Parrott.

“It’s an absolute privilege to be a part of such a strong, long-standing, proud event here in our Tauranga community,” Hantler said. “The APPA Choir Festival in Auckland, which ran for three weeks and has also been running for 70 years plus, stopped alongside many other choir festivals around the country during Covid. They had a year off and never started again. We’re lucky that ours has had the resilience to continue into the future.”

Immense

The scale of the Tauranga event is immense. Preparations stretch across the entire school year, beginning in Term 1 when teachers receive a specially prepared music book and rehearsal recordings. Terms 2-3 include large, massed rehearsals, with hundreds of children bussed to central venues to practise singing together – often for the first time.

For life

“For some schools, this is their big event for the year,” McKoy said. “It’s what the children work towards for months. Being on that stage, knowing their parents, grandparents and whānau are watching – that’s a memory they’ll carry for life.”

Jeremy Hantler conducting a previous Tauranga Primary Schools Music Festival at Baycourt. Photo / Supplied

This year’s 70th anniversary will also be marked with a special nod to the festival’s history, with one song originally composed 70 years ago being brought back into the programme.

While the festival continues to thrive artistically, organisers said it faces growing financial pressure.

“We’re incredibly grateful for support like the Western Bay Community Event Fund, which helps cover the Baycourt venue,” McKoy said. “But costs everywhere are rising, and funding is getting harder to secure.”

The festival is run as a not-for-profit, and organisers are determined to keep ticket prices affordable.

“We don’t want cost to be a barrier,” McKoy said. “This festival needs to stay accessible – especially for families and communities who don’t often get opportunities like this.”

Investing in children

As a result, the committee was actively seeking community partners and sponsors to help ensure the festival’s future.

“This is about investing in children, creativity, and confidence,” McKoy said. “Seventy years on, the magic of hearing hundreds of young voices sing together is still just as powerful.”

The Tauranga Primary Schools Music Festival will be at Baycourt Theatre from August 31-September 4.