Sunday Concert Series: Chris Priestley and the Unsung Heroes

“Unsung Heroes” is a concert of songs and poems, featuring colourful characters from New Zealand’s wild colonial past.

In the tradition of folk balladeers, and with a keen eye for a good story, Chris Priestley will perform songs that portray the heroes and heroines, villains and rogues, magicians, disasters and events that shaped our nation.

Brought to life will be personalities as diverse as the Prussian adventurer Gustavus von Tempsky, New Zealand’s only female miner Little Biddy Goodwin of the Buller, and many more. There will also be songs based on eyewitness accounts of the Tarawera eruption in 1886, and about the short life and tragic death of the tightrope dancer and barmaid Jennie Anderson.

Unsung Heroes are:
- Chris Priestley – guitar and vocals
- Cameron Bennett – vocals and dobro
- Nigel Gavin – seven-string guitar
- Emily Roughton – violin
- Sonia Wilson – vocals
- Claire Robertson – harp
- Peter Elliott – readings

The album “Unsung Heroes” was a finalist in the folk category in the 2013 Tui Awards. Since then Chris has continued writing prolifically and produced a further collection of original songs of New Zealand’s rogues and villains.