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A new MEFA partnership between Burnside High School Music Department and Music Works New Zealand is excited to announce the founding of a new music festival for primary, intermediate, high school and community based musical groups. To be hosted this year in The Aurora Centre at Burnside High School, Christchurch, on 31st August and 1st September, the Aurora Festival began on a very small scale, in the wake of Covid, in 2022. The festival aims to foster a love for orchestral and symphonic band music as well as strengthening the ties between schools and the wider community through coming together and playing to each other, all under the eyes and ears of a team of nationally and internationally respected adjudicators who not only provide feedback, but also work intensively with each group in a workshop session following their stage performance.

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Burnside High School Head of Music and co-director of the Aurora Festival Chris Petch said: “after the success of the inaugural Aurora Festival last year, we are so excited to have secured the backing of Music Works and are grateful in particular to Darren Smith, Music Works NZ General Manager, for his interest in this initiative. With this level of support we are going to be able to grow the festival moving forwards, and hope to welcome groups from across the South Island and further afield this year, and into the future. Together with the existing Wellington based MEFA festival and Jazz Bandit competition, the young musicians around New Zealand now have an unprecedented range of opportunities through which they can get out and enjoy doing what they love the most – making music together.”