Also known as: Christchurch Polytechnic Jazz School; Ara Institute of Canterbury Music Arts; Ara Music Arts
Location: 130 High Street, Christchurch Central City (corner of Madras and High Streets)
Active: 1991–present
Current status: Operating (as Ara Music Arts, Ara Institute of Canterbury)
History
The CPIT School of Jazz opened in 1991 as New Zealand’s only dedicated tertiary institution for jazz education — a distinction it held for many years and one that shaped the musical life of Christchurch in ways still felt today. The school emerged from the vision of one person: Neill Pickard, a music educator who had been tutoring at the Christchurch Polytechnic since 1979 and who recognised a fundamental gap in the city’s cultural infrastructure.
Pickard had taught at Christchurch Boys’ High School through the 1970s, where he wrote and produced a jazz-rock musical based on Shakespeare’s life, before moving to the polytechnic. Through the 1980s he developed a concept for a formal, vocational jazz training programme — something that would give young musicians in the city access to standardised repertoire, music literacy, and professional certification. “The lack of formal, vocationally rich training in the city for young people to learn the standard jazz repertoire and to become literate and certificated musicians moved me to initiate proceedings,” Pickard later explained. After years of seeking institutional approval and government funding, his proposal was approved under a $100 million polytechnic expansion programme. A pilot ran in 1990, with the full programme launching in 1991 with 36 students across six disciplines: guitar, bass, drums, horns, saxophones, and vocals.
The founding faculty assembled by Pickard was exceptional for a new programme. Doug Caldwell — widely regarded as Christchurch’s leading jazz pianist and known as “the Maestro” — joined as a tutor, bringing with him decades of professional experience including performances at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas and across the United States. Caldwell taught at the school until 2005 and donated his personal collection of records and jazz books to the institution. The school’s auditorium was named the Doug Caldwell Concert Room in his honour. Other founding tutors included Bob Heinz (guitar), Tom Rainey (bass and keyboards), Ted Meager (drums), Ian Edwards (woodwind), Murray Warner (piano), Gerald Marston (brass), Malcolm McNeill (jazz vocals), Genevieve Kelly (voice and choir), and Stu Buchanan (saxophone), who had been on the original advisory panel for the school’s development.
The school’s first home was on St Asaph Street, but in 1998 it moved into a purpose-built three-level building on the corner of Madras and High Streets in the CBD. The new facility was designed specifically for music education: air-conditioned and soundproofed, it contained individual practice rooms, ensemble rooms, class teaching rooms, a computer and keyboard suite, a CD and resource library, a 99-seat auditorium, recording facilities, and quality grand pianos and backline. The building placed the school on the edge of the central city, visible and accessible, which proved important to its identity as a civic cultural institution rather than a campus outpost.
The mid-1990s brought a significant boost to the school’s profile through the founding of the New Zealand International Jazz and Blues Festival by Jodi Wright. The festival, held in Christchurch, drew international artists to the city and created a natural symbiosis with the jazz school: students could attend master classes, sit in on rehearsals, and experience world-class musicians performing in the school’s own auditorium. The international exposure raised the school’s reputation nationally and gave students a connection to the broader jazz world that would have been difficult to access from the South Island a decade earlier.
One of the school’s most celebrated incidents became part of local legend. In 1999, US President Bill Clinton visited Christchurch for the APEC summit. Knowing his motorcade would travel down Madras Street on its return from the Port Hills, school musicians and tutors took their instruments onto the pavement outside the building. Clinton — an accomplished saxophonist — spotted them, had his driver pull over, borrowed a saxophone, and played several tunes with the group. The encounter was widely reported and became a source of considerable pride for the school.
The school also hosted notable international guests in more formal capacities. In 1993, US jazz trumpeter Nat Adderley — younger brother of the legendary Cannonball Adderley — visited Christchurch and narrated a performance of Porgy and Bess with the CPIT Jazz School choir. Tony Bennett, visiting Christchurch, is said to have sketched the jazz school musicians as they performed. The auditorium continued to host international visitors for master classes and performances throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the proximity of the Jazz and Blues Festival ensuring a regular flow of world-class performers through the building.
Neill Pickard retired as Head of Jazz in 2003 but remained connected to music education. He subsequently lectured jazz history through the University of Canterbury’s Rags to Swing course and taught night classes in jazz history and appreciation. In 2008 he received a Queen’s Service Medal and Christchurch Civic Award for services to jazz education and the community. Harry Harrison, a Glasgow-born guitarist who arrived in Christchurch in 1985, joined the teaching staff in 2000 at Pickard’s invitation and has taught jazz and contemporary styles at the school ever since, riding through its format and name changes while maintaining an active performing and recording career with his band Inside Out.
The Christchurch earthquakes of 2010 and 2011 caused significant disruption. The central building was damaged and the school relocated its lectures and rehearsals to undamaged spaces around the city while repairs were carried out. Teaching continued off-site throughout the recovery period, and the school emerged intact. In 2002 it had already secured the right to confer a full degree — the Bachelor of Music Arts, replacing the previous Diploma in Jazz and accredited through the University of Canterbury — giving students access to a nationally recognised university-level qualification in jazz and contemporary music. The programme subsequently expanded beyond its original jazz focus to include contemporary music pathways across performance, composition, production, and songwriting. In 2016, CPIT merged with Aoraki Polytechnic to form the Ara Institute of Canterbury, and the jazz school was rebranded as Ara Music Arts.
The school has produced alumni who have gone on to professional careers in New Zealand and internationally. Naomi Ferguson, who completed a double major in Voice and Arranging at CPIT, went on to perform as a soloist with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Wellington, and the Auckland Philharmonia, releasing three studio albums and creating acclaimed one-woman shows including Songs My Mother Taught Me, commissioned by the Christchurch Arts Festival in 2009. Damien Motu, a Christchurch-born guitarist and composer, completed his degree in 2014 with a major in Arranging/Composing and Jazz Guitar Performance, subsequently spending time in New York studying with leading jazz musicians. Nick Dow, a jazz pianist and songwriter, also trained at the school, as did drummer Mitchell Thomas, who studied under Ted Meager. Doug Caldwell’s own prolific recording career — 13 albums during his lifetime, including Off the Cuff (1992), Willows (1995), Legacy (2003), and Waiting at the Red Door (2009) — stands as a document of the calibre of musicianship the school nurtured from its earliest years. Caldwell died on 10 May 2022, aged 94, having remained active as a performer into his late eighties.
By its 30th anniversary in 2021, the institution had educated several generations of Canterbury jazz and contemporary musicians. The programme today sits within Ara’s Creative Arts faculty and offers three pathways — Music Performance, Music Creation, and Music Production — delivered by a faculty of practising professionals. The building at 130 High Street continues to function as a centre for music performance and education in central Christchurch, with the Doug Caldwell Concert Room still hosting concerts, master classes, and student recitals.
The lack of formal, vocationally rich training in the city for young people to learn the standard jazz repertoire and to become literate and certificated musicians moved me to initiate proceedings.
Neill Pickard, founder, AudioCulture, 2021