1. What are environmental issues?

There are things about the world and the way people live that may need to changed in order for all of nature, humans, plants, and creatures to have healthy lives. The population of the world is growing very fast and all those people need to eat and have homes and learn and grow and the materials that are used for all these activities all come in some way or another from the body of this planet called Earth. With more people on the planet we have to be smarter about how we use the Earth’s resources if we don’t want them to run out and if we want as many species, including humans, to be able to carry on living here. You hear a lot about the extinction of animals and plants and how the environment we live in is getting less and less naturally healthy. Things need to be thought about carefully and plans need to be made and carried out as soon as possible because as the population of humans grows the earth’s resources get more and more used up.

2. Is Enviromusic going to save the world? How?

Enviromusic WILL save the world if we start singing it. The world sings it every moment. If you listen to the sounds of nature you hear what needs to happen. The world naturally wants to stay healthy and all its systems work toward staying healthy, just as our bodies do. They tell us when we need to rest and eat and that it’s not smart to be rude or greedy. As we are part of the planet we just need to listen to the planet as if it was our own body, which of course it is really. Then there’s chance that we will stop doing things that are harmful to our health in the long run. All singers need to be good listeners. If they aren’t they sing out tune. If we listen carefully to nature we’ll learn to sing in tune with it and then we’ll begin to hear what we need to do to keep the world beautiful and healthy.

3. Our school wants to produce the show for Sea Blues. Do we need a band?

The songs in the Sea Blues collection could be sung with a band or sung along to the CD recording. Either way. If you have a band at school and a teacher who can write the chords down from listening carefully to the Cd then maybe you could make your own band arrangements. I didn’t write a script for these songs yet. But there’s no reason why you couldn’t write one yourselves. Think about the songs and the characters that are singing them and see if you can come up with a story that links them all together somehow.

4. Our kindy kids want to dress up as flowers and dance. Any idea for costumes?

You can do lot with recyclable materials i know that. Bubble wrap if fantastic for wings and insect bodies. You can paint paper bags and cut the sides into petal shapes and put the bottom of the bag on your head. Do you get what i mean? And I’ve made tons of things from newspaper too which is easier to get probably. Some of the pages are quite colourful. I made a morepork cloak and kapahaka skirts out of the black and white pages once. And lots can be made out of old sheets. The simplest way to make flowers is to wear green clothes and paint each other faces with petals. Your teacher is going to have ideas I haven’t even thought of I’m sure.

5. The intermediate kids want to put on a serious play about conservation. Is Island Dreams hard to produce? How many male/female voices are required?

Well, Island Dreams is quite flexible. You can have soloists or you can have the choir sing everything and have some actors act out the script and sing of course but everyone is singing together really. And you know I think that is easier on everyone. There’s less to learn that way and you can concentrate your time making fabulous bird masks and costumes and getting into the feel of the songs which come across best the more voices you have singing them. I don’t write my musicals for theatrical reasons - to train up little stage stars I mean. I write them so kids will have a memorable time being together and making things and singing their heads off and finding out about the realities behind the words of the songs. I want you all to care about the world as much as I do and to remember for ever that the world is your world, that it’s up to you how things will turn out in the future. I want you to be inspired to live a life that helps and gives rather than a life which just uses things up and doesn’t think about others.

6. How do we start?

You’ve started already. You say you are serious about conservation. Now you will begin to learn what you need to learn to become kaitiaki (caretakers). You know what? Learning and singing will never let you down. Keep doing both and you’ll make your lives valuable.

7. How do we ask our teacher to get enviromusic for our school production?

Well if it was me I’d get a Cd and learn a song from it - with your best friends of course - and act it out and show him/her that you are enthusiastic. Teachers are always so busy and if they think you are really keen, well...it’s hard to say no to that.