Opening Notes

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Opening Notes, or the Opening Notes Project, is a cultural initiative begun in Wellington, New Zealand. It involves the annual compilation of local music, photography, and literary contributions and the production of a music CD and booklet. This Opening Notes package is then given free of charge, as a welcome from the older generation, to each of the 6,000 babies born in the region annually. Distribution occurs ante-natally, through a partnerhip with the regional hospital facilities. There is no commercial activity associated with the Opening Notes Project, as the produced package is meant as a gift from one generation to the next. The project was inaugurated on 13 July 2006, when the first of 6,000 Opening Notes packages was delivered by Wellington Mayor, Kerry Prendergast.

The Opening Notes Project was engineered by Eric Holowacz, Arts Programmes and Services Manager, Wellington City Council. The inaugural effort, Opening Notes 2006/07, was developed between 2003-2006, and involved hundreds of creative people, music-makers, record labels, district health boards, and non-profit orgnaisations in Wellington Region. In 2005 Holowacz forged a unique public-private partnership with Wellington Saatchi & Saatchi, and general manager Jonathan Russell, whose creative and account staff have driven the concept development and implementation ever since. New Zealand music industry impresario Blink, of A Low Hum also served as creative consultant.

Opening Notes involves close partnerships with SOUNZ: the Centre for New Zealand Music, Wellington-based record labels, Capital & Coast District Health Board, Hutt Valley District Health Board, The Neonatal Trust, recording studios and producers, and hundreds of musicians in the New Zealand capital. The result is a gift of welcome, transferred to all of the new arrivals in the region, and intended as a life-long reflection of cultural identity. A new Opening Notes compilation and package will be produced each year, as a cultural heirloom from the person's time of birth.