Over the last six years, the Bird­song pa­n­yard has been the scene of a con­tin­u­ous­ly evolv­ing pro­gramme of com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment, so­cial en­tre­pre­neur­ship, and the pur­suit of mu­si­cal ex­cel­lence. In ad­di­tion to its core func­tion as a prac­tise venue for the Bird­song Steel Or­ches­tra, the St Vin­cent Street, Tu­na­puna lo­ca­tion is home to a Bird­song owned land­scap­ing and con­struc­tion main­te­nance com­pa­ny, which pro­vides em­ploy­ment for more than 90 mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty. Lit­er­al­ly, the mu­sic ed­u­ca­tion pro­gramme has been a case of the or­gan­i­sa­tion's bound­less faith in the pow­er of mu­sic, and par­tic­u­lar­ly in the role of the steel­band move­ment in har­ness­ing the cre­ative po­ten­tial of our youth in the face of the host of neg­a­tive in­flu­ences that are dis­guised as pop­u­lar cul­ture.

It al­so ac­knowl­edges the knowl­edge­able mu­si­cians who con­tribute to the teach­ing and learn­ing pro­gramme -mu­si­cians like Richie Quar­less, Raff Robert­son, Frankie McIn­tosh, Clyde Mitchell and Leo Steven­son. The en­thu­si­as­tic in­vest­ment of time and ef­fort by these in­di­vid­u­als has been matched by the fi­nan­cial re­sources con­tributed by a num­ber of lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions, and the un­tir­ing sup­port of the Tu­na­puna com­mu­ni­ty.

Last month, Bird­song of­fi­cials ex­pressed their grat­i­tude to all those who shared in the vi­sion on the mu­si­cal jour­ney ex­cel­lence in the form of Christ­mas in the Park-a free com­mu­ni­ty con­cert at Au­zonville Park, Tu­na­puna. Per­for­mances were giv­en by all Bird­song's ag­gre­ga­tions, in­clud­ing the Bird­song Acad­e­my, in­struc­tors in the Richie Quar­less Or­ches­tra, and, of course, the bird­song Steel Or­ches­tra. Bish­op Anstey High School's 60-mem­ber choir was the sole guest.