With the support of Creative New Zealand I am hugely proud to present a creative short-film to support the growth of my environmental rock opera Waste Free Wanda.
Join me either online or, if you’re in the Deep South, at Tuatara Cafe in Invercargill for the premiere.
I look forward to sharing it with you!
FFS is Number 4 on the NZ charts
I’m so proud of this album and hope you enjoy it as much as I’ve loved creating it.
It’s jam packed with songs for kids up to age 12. I’ve included funny & imaginative songs, lullaby’s & songs about rural life and the environment, memories from my childhood. There’s even a song about a runaway chicken!
My hope is that is serves as a resource, as well as good old fashioned entertainment. And a handy stocking filler too
What a week! I flew to Auckland for some television and radio action, and even made it along to a fantastic touring workshop hosted by APRA. It was great to catch up with a bunch of wonderful friends, including some of my buddy’s from Kiwi Kids Music.
It’s so good to be back home with my family in our quiet wee valley again, as I gear up for a bunch of concerts in the lead up to Christmas.
Thank you so much to everyone who has pre purchased the album already. Over 300 copies are on their way to you this Christmas.
And if you haven’t seen Echo, check it out here!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U5TtBoMzRc
SPECIAL DATES:
Album Launch Concert for Fishing For Stars
I’m well over the halfway mark on my PledgeMe campaign, and with just 8 days to go before it’s all over, I’m feeling pretty cool, calm and collected about the whole thing.
This is mostly due to the fantastic support I’ve been receiving, including a pledge from one early learning centre who are purchasing 100 copies of Fishing for Stars as Christmas gifts this year for their children. Wow!
I’ve had kindergartens book concerts, venues book my grown up shows and of course, so many wonderful people have purchased their own copy of the album. All I can say is Thank you!
Spending some time with the beautiful Suzy, on Suzy and friends.
This past weekend I had the joy of joining Kiwi Kids legend Suzy Cato up in Auckland on her Suzy and Friends show. Stay tuned for these in November.
I flew home from yesterday to find a beautiful email from The Natural parent Magazine, telling me they’d published my article on Mindfulness, Music and Motherhood. I’m a huge fan of this gorgeous publication and am super stoked to share a piece here.
Tomorrow I pick up my latest partner in crime Kath Bee, to film and record our new single Give Love At Christmas. More news on that later.
In the meantime, please keep sharing my campaign with friends and family. If you haven’t pledged you have until October 31st so get on in.
Much love
Anna
My wee star Tasmin recording in her vocals at Mirrors Audio for my latest single ‘Echo’.
Things are gearing up with my team of videographers, animators and graphic designers, not to mention my beautiful star Tasmin, who is both my vocalist and actor in my soon-to-be-released single Echo.
In March this year I was exceptionally fortunate to be one of the first recipients for a new children’s music fund. What’s most exciting about this fund is that it will suddenly showcase the huge amount of fantastic talent we have in the children’s music sector here in NZ.
My song Echo has been tumbling around in my head for two years now, and Tasmin has even sung it at our local Hawea Playgroup Annual Fundraiser. It feels super exciting to bring it into real life, and something children can watch, hear and enjoy.
The Echo music video follows the story of a little girl who sees her wishing star in the winter sky, during our Maori New Years (Matariki). The star connects with her as she realises it’s her Grandfather that she has lost. She follows the star through an enchanted garden and to a magical treehouse where she finally can see it in all its splendour. My hope is that all children who watch the music video feel a connection to part of NZ’s culture, language and beliefs (*that our ancestors watch over us).
The clip has left videographer Ollie Larkin (Vision Workshop) and is now with my wonderful animator Traci Meek (Meek and Wild Creations) who will animate in our winter sky.
Echo is set to launch on October 1st in the lead up to the release of my 2nd studio album for kids Fishing for Stars, which will arrive just in time for Christmas.
Watch this space.
Love Anna ♡
With the launch of my new music video animation with Meek and Wild Creations, and a silver placing at the Australian Songwriters Awards (ASA)I am so chuffed to see my children’s song “Doodlebug” is having its day.
The ASA’s have literally hundreds of entries in each category. My album title track scored a first place last year and also received only the 2nd perfect score the competition has seen in it’s 25 year history. Being placed again (and being the only Kiwi on the board0 is a real buzz.
2017 ASA Top 10 list
2018 is set to bring some exciting advances on my collaboration with animator Traci Meek and her creation of “Girl and the imagination warehouse”. Watch this space.
Find the article here:
http://www.thenews.co.nz/arts-entertainment/doodlebug-song-success/
Catch me this Sunday at the Upper Clutha Teddy Bear Picnic.
Big love
Anna xoxox
When I received a random call from SIT animation student Traci Meek about writing some children’s songs for final uni project I could never have imagined it would lead to such an elaborate and exciting string of events.
The hugely organised and motivated Traci began by sending me her pitch bible for “Girl and the Imagination Warehouse”, a story about a little girl who has created a collection of weird and wonderful friends to cope with her pent up emotions. The songs started flowing, much inspired by the prompts of Traci’s existing lyrics and concepts, and just a couple of months later we were in the studio recording.
Girl and the Imagination Warehouse
Joined by Invercargill Musical Theatre star Libby Fraser, playing a neurotic possum made of pasta called Goldie and (prev.) Into the East’s Liv Cochrane playing a cyber rabbit called Flash, the characters were brought to life.
I got the star role of “Girl” and her best buddy Jellybean, who doesn’t speak but does whistle.
Libby as voice for Goldie the neurotic pasta-made possum.
As an exchange, Traci had suggested a shill-share arrangement, where I write her songs and she animated one of my tracks. I chose my currently unreleased water conservation song “Mr H20”, but noted that she had an existing clip that not only fitted perfectly with my children’s track “Doodlebug” , but also portrayed a very fitting story.
The exciting news, to top it all off it that both Doodlebug and Mr H20 have been shortlisted in this years Australian Songwriters Association Awards.
Made of cables and old USB’s, Flash is a hyper cyber rabbit who doesn’t like to talk about his feelings.
Today I’m very excited to be launching the official “Doodlebug” video clip and to share that not has this been an epic collaboration, but the start of a truly awesome friendship.
Lucky me!!!
Press Release
July 17th 2017
Award winning children’s performer Anna van Riel has launched a new toe-tapping single for children, with a focus on positive empowerment around money.
The catchy track entitled One Little Dollar is inspired by the CFFC’s (Commission for Fincancial Capability) upcoming campaign to raise awareness around supporting children on how to save.
“This year in august we have “sorted money week” which is kind of like music month in terms of promoting money education, awareness around debt & planning”, fellow Kiwi kids performer and sorted.org.nz coordinator Claudia Gunn said.
Gunn initially sent out an email to the Kiwi Kids Collective; a group of children’s music performers in NZ, offering the opportunity to submit a money song.
“I never learned any money skills in school and spend the longest time fumbling about, trying to figure out how to manage funds and invest. Even if it’s deciding on whether it was smarter to spend your pocket money bubble gum or pineapple lumps, understanding how your money works is a gold”, shares Anna.
“I jumped at the opportunity, and started writing a song right away. I took it into Danny Fairley in his Wanaka studio and he helped me make it fun and encouraging”.
One Little Dollar will be shared during the money week launch, but can be already be found on itunes, bandcamp and other online platforms.
For more details on money week head to www.cffc.org.nz
I love food.
I must spend an average of 5hrs per day in my kitchen preparing, presenting and eating food. It’s one of the most important aspects of our every day so placing great emphasis on nutrition for both myself and my family makes sense.
Luckily for me I also love inventing recipes. Growing up as a teen with a busy solo Dad and a pantry consisting of fairly random ingredients (eg: pickled bamboo shoots that my grandfather brought back from his posting in Indonesia during WW2) have helped to stretch my imagination, and since those days I’ve learned to grow food throughout the seasons which offer more variety to my dishes.
As I close in on week four of a ketogenic diet, I notice my energy perkier, waist a little trimmer and most surprisingly, my joy for creating varying and non-boring dishes is only growing.
After a 6-week shot at eating keto back in January/February, my decision to have another crack at it was inspired by…well, to be honest, it was inspired by over zealous enjoyment of wine and carbs. Bringing your body to a state of ketosis now only encourages the efficient burning of your body’s energy, it also creates an alkaline environment. Inflammation in joints is reduces, clarity of mind is enhanced and your immune system is more supported.
I have a feeling that once I get cracking on this whole recipe spiel, the music focus of my blogs may risk falling to the wayside, so watch this space as I endeavour to find ways to interweave music and food.
In the meantime, here’s my latest and favourite snack recipe.
In a bowl:
*Ground seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, golden linseed, sesame)
*desiccated coconut
*coconut flakes
*cocao powder
*almond meal
In the blender:
*soaked dates (don’t tip out the juice from soaking)
*peanut butter (optional but awesome)
In a pot:
*coconut oil
*cocao butter
*72% dark whittakers chocolate
(be careful not to burn. Stay with this and stir till melted)
Mix well, the wet with the dry, and press into a lined tin.
TIPS: If you find your mix is too wet, add some more desiccated coconut. If it’s too dry, add more of the date soaking juice or a splash of water.
Freeze for an hour or two, then cut.
Keep in the fridge.
Bob’s your uncle.
Seriously! Bob is your Uncle. We’ve been trying to tell you for a while now.