To Sally Jane Norman

In my personal opinion, your decisions are the reason why the NZSM is in serious danger of being shut down. You're an elitist that has no interest in commercial music - other than exploiting my gift to raise money - you're not exactly sociable, and the finances were always going to be slippery after Massey pulled out of the NZSM in 2015 or 2016. Combining the jazz and classical schools has resulted in the worst of both worlds.

Now, The preening contempt of the smartarse classical people is mixing with the arrogant machismo of jazz. You're creating musicians who are unable to make a career without state support, then criticising me for building an indie career. There is no inherent right here. Conservatories the world over are facing similar things to the MeToo moment, and your manner of handling it is the reason that the people that are in charge of VUW want to get rid of it as soon as possible. You ran a deliberate campaign to discredit me because you actually liked Jake. You funded his career and you enabled him: I'm not the only person who complained, and that weight of evidence clearly won the day at some point in 2022 or 2023.

Simply and plainly cease. I'm not coming back, and nothing will entice me.

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So that you realise you're not alone, I'm about to tell you what has to happen in order for me to allow NZ Opera to produce the Perfumed Garden: they have to apologise to all the participants in Voices of Aotearoa, admit that they brownwashed the candidates before offering the plum to a white kid, plus they need to stop bagging on musicals.

Instead of doing lame amplified pieces, produce Carousel or South Pacific properly.

For the NZSO to perform my music, they have to sit down for a full-length interview in which I - and all my friends that agree to help - are going to go through their finances, their audience numbers and ask them to justify their funding.

I did that already online for Rawiri, but I desperately want to capture their self-satisfied smugness on camera to prove that I'm not insane and they really are that pretentious.

For Orchestra Wellington to perform my music, Amalia and Marc have to write to me. Stalking me, classical people, has resulted in this impasse. Communicate directly and allow me - who is actually a journalist - to grill you about your privilege. Otherwise, my synth tracks are perfectly fine, and I'm sure Wellington Opera will be equally able to produce my piece. My synths are so good they created a demand to hear that music live; they're so good that TPM and the online audience essentially treated them as real.

Uni of Otago have seriously considered doing a reading of Shipwrecked, and I'd rather do 'further study' with Ken and Ravil. I know them both from my younger days and they're actually friendly with me. They added me on FB, and they reply to my msgs. -

I have a life. I have a career. The only thing that the NZSM has done is stymie that. Like, Peter and Fran are following along with my Shipwrecked draft (for real). Unlike everyone else, they read that early 2050 treatment and actually got on-board. So, yeah, let me be a real person rather than a screen. Let me pursue my dreams.

You never supported my career when I was at the school, Sally-Jane. In fact, we have never spoken because you looked down your nose at my type of music. You don't get to claim you like it now because you and Miramar Creative want to save jobs. Cease and desist promptly. Don't prolong this. Just let me have my freedom.

Yours sincerely, Amanda Riddell