Carmel Courtney
Carmel is a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, composer and educator.
She was a member of the National Jazz Youth Orchestra, completed a Christchurch symphony Orchestra cadetship and has a diploma from the Christchurch Jazz school. Carmel taught Contemporary Music at MAINZ in Auckland and at 'Polynesian Performing Arts' in Christchurch for five years combined. She has composed soundtracks for theatre productions, film and session work (‘When a City Falls’, Temptation of a Monk’..) , has recorded two albums and continues to record electronica with DJ Max Maxwell.
Carmel has toured extensively playing festivals and venues in NZ and around the globe with artists such as ‘Hampster ’,The Jews Brothers’, The Mamaku Project, Hello Sailor, Tyson Smith, Yurt Party....
Festivals of note - The North Seas Jazz Festival, Womad (Redding), Splore, ‘The London Jazz Festival’, Nuremberg Jazz Festival.
In 2007 Carmel set up and managed ‘Volcano Radio’ a community station for Lyttelton which broadcast 80 shows weekly until its home in Shadbolt House was demolished as a result of the 2011 earthquakes.In 2012 Carmel established ‘Toot Toot Sounds’, a body which provides music education within schools and which is, still on-going.
In 2016 Director Mike Friend and Carmel established aPerforming Arts Programme at Lyttelton Arts Factory (LAF) with Carmel heading the Music department which is still on-going. She is also Musical director for LAF in the Theatres Professional capacity, working on projects such as ‘Oliver Twist’ and the recent ‘Berlin Burlesque’.
Carmel plays regularly in Christchurch keeping match fit on Sunday
arvo’s with a variety of musicians, in particular Simon Gregory, Doug Brush, Ricardo Stuani and Mike Kime.