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Published by Communications and Development
Associate Professor Martin Setchell (Music) has been honoured by the Christchurch City Council for his services to the town hall Rieger pipe organ.
Professor Setchell was recently presented with a 2007 Christchurch Civic Award by Mayor Bob Parker at a special ceremony. The awards recognised 22 people and organisations from a wide cross-section of the community, whose actions have helped make Christchurch a better place in which to live.
“I was surprised to win the award but absolutely delighted that the city council recognised the importance of the town hall organ,” he said.
Professor Setchell has been closely involved with the organ since arriving from England in 1974. For many years he helped in the campaign to raise funds to buy the Austrian-built organ and has been the city’s organ curator since it was installed in 1997. Professor Setchell performed at the inaugural concert and last year organised and participated in celebrations for its 10th anniversary.
In the citation read at the ceremony it was noted that the pipe organ was the most complex musical instrument ever devised by human hands.
“Even to describe it simply as a musical instrument is a diminution of its grandeur, and those who sit at the consoles of these magnificent engines of sound are more than just musicians. In a certain mystical sense he [Professor Setchell] and the Christchurch Town Hall Pipe Organ are one, for their relationship is much more than that of player and instrument. A more appropriate metaphor might be that of father and child.”
The citation continues that together Professor Setchell and the organ had become world-famous celebrities, with recordings of their music sold worldwide and played on national radio networks in Australia, the United States, and in Great Britain.
“He has put organ music in Christchurch onto the world map, and has brought pleasure to countless concert-goers.”
As organ curator, Professor Setchell is responsible for the promotion of the instrument and its upkeep and welfare. He calculates that he has performed in more than 200 town hall organ events and “am probably well on the way to 300”.
“These include solo concerts,staged performances like Bach's Back in 2000, concertos with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, appearances with the City Choir, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and the Woolston Brass Band. In addition there have been dinners, conferences, private demonstrations, graduations for UC, Lincoln and CPIT, and occasional one-offs like the recent farewell rally to Bishop Coles.”
Professor Setchell is currently rehearsing for Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Telephone and The Medium being staged as part of UC arts festival Platform 08 in May. He will be conducting the two popular short operas with the cast and orchestra consisting almost entirely of staff and students from the School of Music.
In June he returns to Germany for organ recitals in Wiesbaden, Muhlacker, Altenberg and Oppenheim before heading to the UK for concerts in Edinburgh and Nottingham.
For further information please contact:
Jeanette Colman
Communications Manager
University of Canterbury
Ph (03) 364 2260
jeanette.colman@canterbury.ac.nz