Never mind the $5000 cash prize and freshly engraved trophy – Anna Coddington reckons what really counts in winning the top APRA Silver Scroll Award this year is that it’s an “affirmation” by her peers of her success as a songwriter.
“It means a lot,” the Raglan born and bred musician told the Chronicle of the gong she received at an awards ceremony in Wellington recently for her co-written bilingual waiata ‘Katuarehe’ – which translates, ironically, as ‘to be outstanding/marvellous’.
Songwriting has always been Anna’s passion, she says, and to be voted for the Silver Scroll by others in the music industry is special. “It’s a nice feeling to get that affirmation from your fellow songwriters.”
Her winning waiata was described as having “such sharp, witty, wahine toa energy”.
The now 43 year old was playing drums from age 11 and picked up the guitar three years later. By 16 Anna was fronting and writing for her first band Handsome Geoffrey, which won New Zealand’s national student music competition, the Smokefree Rockquest, in 1998.
Anna’s been involved with the Silver Scroll Awards for many years as a performer, presenter, top five finalist, and top 20 nominee. But winning the premier accolade for songwriting in Aotearoa was still a “huge surprise”, she says.
The accolade comes two years after she won the Maori Music Award for best Maori album in te reo; another significant milestone in her musical career.
There was always Maori music in her life, Anna reveals, but learning te reo as an adult through night classes has brought her to songwriting in the language – much of which she attributes to the influence of Dame Hinewehi Mohi, who has inspired popular Kiwi musicians to re-record their songs in Maori.
Becoming proficient in te reo is what Anna simply calls “part of my learning journey”. Growing up with a Maori mother and a pakeha father – first in Government Rd then out beyond Whale Bay – she had an early introduction to the language through Raglan Area School’s bilingual or rumaki unit.
After attending Hamilton Girls’ High School she studied linguistics at Auckland University to masters level and now – as a mother of two – is back there in her third year of a four-year law degree, though is not sure yet if she wants to be a lawyer like her own mother.
Just about to head into uni exams and with no music tours in the pipeline, Anna says she may well be back to Whaingaroa for the summer holidays. There’s lots of “great stuff” about her hometown, she adds – like the beach, family and the cafes.
She remembers her childhood as being one of classic Kiwi beachtown life. “And when I started playing the drums I could bang away on them for hours and no-one ever complained,” she laughs. “People get it down there (in Whaingaroa).”
by Edith Symes
