Nelson School of Music

The Nelson School of Music is among the city’s finest and most loved heritage buildings. And it is not just locals who value the atmosphere and acoustics of the 105 year building - eminent performers have named it their favourite New Zealand venue.

Link to the Nelson School of Music website.

History of the School of Music

The School's history dates back to the earliest years of European settlement when the Nelson settlers, removed from their home country and its culture, formed a Harmonic Society so they could share in amateur musical performances.

In 1893 they imported a full time conductor, Michael Balling, from Germany, the hub of the musical world at that time. On holiday at Mount Cook, Balling was snowed in with a wealthy Nelson shipping agent J H Cock, and convinced him that Nelson needed a school of music.

In 1894 the school was set up in the expanded Harmonic Hall but when this proved too small, Cock donated the site at the corner of Nile and Collingwood Streets and the Nelson School of Music was opened in September 1901. It was designed by Frederick de Jersey Clere.

At the final rehearsals for the opening concert the organisers panicked when they found the acoustics were too resonant - fortunately this corrects when the hall is full. In 1911 another Nelson benefactor, Thomas Cawthron, donated an organ imported from England. It was water powered and reduced to a whisper when there was a drought, a problem that was solved when electricity was laid on in 1926.

Right up until the 1950s the school delivered the music curriculum for Nelson high schools, and was an emergency classroom when the boys’ college burnt down in 1905. The hall also became a cinema for several years, with silent movies accompanied by piano, and sometimes by the excited barking of dogs brought along to see the show. 

Modern history

By 1994 when the school celebrated its centennial it had become a community based performing arts and music education centre with a strong New Zealand identity. It hosts an annual winter festival, has over 80,000 people through its doors every year and offers a full-time contemporary music course - shaking the foundations with hip-hop and rock, music that’s very different from anything the founders could have imagined!

The Council supports the School of Music with an annual grant, and the preservation of the city’s heritage buildings is now part of the Council’s Whakatu Nelson Heritage Strategy, which sets out action plans to preserve all the aspects of the city’s heritage from buildings to archaeological sites and trees.

Chamber Music Festival

The School of Music is one of the venues for the Adam Chamber Music Festival, which is on during the months of January and February each summer. 

The festival draws chamber music lovers from all over New Zealand and even further afield and features a top line up of national and international musicians.