WHAKAAHUA • PROFILE
CITY TALES WORDS: CAITLIN SYKES • IMAGERY: MIKE HEYDON
Having already scaled the winding staircase that led to the choir loft high in one of the towers of Dunedin’s Category 1-listed St Joseph’s Cathedral, David Murray made a call to push higher still. His search of the loft for a mass composed by Raffaello Squarise – the Italian musician and composer who lived in Dunedin from 1889 until his retirement in the 1930s, and who was the subject of David’s PhD research – had come up empty-handed. So, undeterred, David headed up a ladder and through a trap door to where the cathedral’s choirmaster had signalled more music could possibly be found. Squarise had begun writing the mass during a stint as choirmaster at the cathedral in the 1890s. He’d completed the mass when he returned to work at the church some 20 years later as a conductor; however, at the time of David’s search in the higher reaches of the cathedral, no one had performed the work for the best part of a century. “On the way up, I nearly rang the bells by mistake. But
then, at the top of the tower, underneath all the pigeon dung, was the original handwritten score for the mass,” recalls David. “It was amazing.” It’s a tale in which research, fascinating characters and an historic place intersect – a nexus that more generally characterises David’s work, and which was recently honoured by Dunedin’s heritage community. Late last year the Hocken Collections archivist received the Bluestone Award from the Southern Heritage Trust during the Ōtepoti Dunedin Heritage Festival, in recognition of his advocacy work to promote and protect the city’s built heritage. The Hocken Collections are diverse and extensive, particularly relating to the Otago region; they span everything from the literary and personal papers of Janet Frame to records from firms such as the Union Steam Ship Company and recorded music relating to the ‘Dunedin sound’. David has worked in the Hocken’s archive section since 2005, at times dealing with
substantial holdings of major built heritage significance. These include the records of Dalziel Architects, for example, and those of Salmond Anderson Architects, with the latter recognised by UNESCO Memory of the World Aotearoa New Zealand as items of recorded heritage that have national significance. “With archives, preservation is one part of the job,” explains David, “but access is the other big side of it. You’re wanting to push all of that archival information out there so people can actually find it and use it, because it’s no use if it’s just hidden away.” While he’s become the Hocken’s ‘go-to guy’ for answers to building-related questions, he’s also extended that reach through sharing stories online of the city’s built heritage. In 2011 he co-founded the Upright! Exploring Dunedin’s Built Heritage Facebook page with Kari Wilson-Allan, and the following year he started the Built in Dunedin blog, in which each post takes a dive into the
history and stories related to a heritage building. “The blog evolved from wanting to share these stories in a more long-form way. I thought I’d just dribble a few posts out and see if it got going; it now has about 600 email subscribers and has averaged 40,000 to 60,000 page views a year, every year since 2013.” With his mother being a piano teacher, David grew up with music. Prior to undertaking his PhD on Squarise, he completed a music performance degree at the University of Otago, and since 1998 has played in the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra, primarily as principal or co-principal cellist. Built heritage has also been a passion from an early age – in part inspired by this publication. “As a child I’d visit my aunt in Wellington; she still lives in this beautiful, early-’70s Erwin Winkler-designed house, and in the spare room there was always a pile of mid-1980s copies of Heritage New Zealand magazine. I still remember particular covers,” he recalls.
Mining a seam in which archival materials, fascinating characters and heritage buildings merge provides rich material for the stories Dr David Murray shares in his blog, Built in Dunedin 12 Hōtoke • Winter 2022
Heritage New Zealand
