Identity politics and opera/musicals

Bluntly, would you rather have an endless series of operas about White or Asian people, or would you rather have a bunch of different operas with a wide variety of ethnicities? It's a structural problem: the pathways that led me to become a composer probably aren't available to the majority of MELAA migrants to New Zealand, nor my Pasifika or Maori colleagues, who are almost always shoved into singing rather than composing.

Colourblind casting is a British thing, so it's not surprising that my American-trained peers are totally unaware of that stuff (except to justify their whiteface).

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I'm not attempting to speak 'for' them: the story is authentic. I'm just a fan of the musics, and have the requisite abilities to use that effectively.

- In fairness, I'm a guitarist, so it's not the instrument that's expensive, and the lessons are affordable as well. But the only reason that I went down the conservatory path was that my grandmother was a musician and my Mum had rebelled against her, but was also a musician, albeit a nightclub/church singer and children's piano teacher.

Mum pushed me into it, but I fell in love with the music. Never got on with the people.

My CSM jazz band was much more fun than Burnside.