Dianne Halliday, Organ

This concert combines a variety of themes - sacred (Christian and Jewish) and secular, serious and comedic, domestic and international. Original organ music by Andrew Perkins, John Keeble, Marcel Dupre and Ernest Bloch. And is P.D.Q. Bach related to J. S.? Come and find out!

Dianne G Halliday has been active in the organ and church music scene in Wellington since her arrival in 1983. From 1984-96 she was Director of Music at the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, establishing junior and adult choirs and bringing to fruition the expansion of the 1905 Hobday instrument to facilitate its use in contemporary Catholic liturgical practice. During this period, she also succeeded in the Fellowship examinations for the American Guild of Organists. In 1997 she began a twenty-three-year commitment to St Peter’s Church, Willis Street. Her activities there included the 150th anniversary of the founding of the parish and continuing the annual Advent Lessons and Carols services. After an attempted arson at the church in 2008, she was heavily involved with the restoration of the Hill organ of 1885. In 2014 she began DMA studies at the New Zealand School of Music at Victoria University, studying with Douglas Mews through 2018. In addition to the Wellington Organists’ Association, of which she is currently president, she has been active in the Royal School of Church Music., of which she was awarded an Associateship in 2023. She formally retired from St Peter’s in 2020 and is now active as a substitute organist and recitalist.