Takapuna Grammar identity hits the stage for charity

Takapuna Grammar School staffer Ngaio Hardie is organising and performing in six concerts for charity this month.

The principal’s executive assistant is fundraising for the Breast Cancer Foundation with a band called The Twist, which includes her and husband Tor. It plays hits from the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

The couple, who were part of the Rose Singers, based at Belmont, for several years, have put together the nine-member band, which plays private functions rather than pub gigs.

Hardie, who has strong family connections to the Devonport area and a son in Year 10 at TGS, hopes peninsula locals will head north to Torbay where the charity shows are being staged.

The location is largely because of venue cost, she says. “It means we can give more money to our chosen charity.”

The group, which performed shows last year to raise money for the Stroke Foundation, this year hopes to raise around $4000.

Hardie has worked at TGS for nearly five years and is house-hunting to move nearer to the school.

Her grandmother, Shirley Brickell, who was on the school board in the 1950s and 60s, was responsible for the planting of pohutukawa along the Lake Rd frontage by the TGS rugby field. And the name of her uncle, the potter Barry Brickell, is emblazoned on the school’s art studio. She jokes that her father also features in the school’s annals, but in his case in historic punishment records of pupils who were caned.

Hardie hopes to get hundreds of people along to enjoy covers of songs by the Beatles, Bowie, Stones, Elton John, Sweet, Nancy Sinatra, Cindy Lauper, Phil Collins, U2 and more.

She is largely a backing vocalist, although she takes lead-vocal duties on a couple of songs.

Pretty

Tor played in bands in the United Kingdom for years and once appeared in a video opposite Phantom of the Opera star Sarah Brightman.

• The Twist, Torbay Community Hall, Friday 19 May and Saturday 20 May at 7.30pm, and Sunday 21 May at 2.30pm, with a further three shows at the same times the following weekend. Tickets, $30, through thetwist.co.nz

Room with a Foo: Music shots on show at ferry terminal

The Devonport ferry terminal is playing host to a small selection of images from last year’s Music Photography Awards.

Among them is the winning shot of Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters (left), taken at Mt Smart Stadium by Dave Watson at a concert in 2018.

The images will be on display until the end of the month and their display is timed to coincide with May, New Zealand Music Month.

Entries for the 2023 Music Photography Award close on 20 May.

Details about the awards and upcoming events at the Auckland Photography Festival, which runs from 31 May to 11 June, are online at photographyfestival.org.nz