King's Honour for Peter de Blois
3 Jun 2025
Image provided by PhotoLife Studios
Our congratulations to Peter de Blois on being made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the King’s Honours, for services to music.
Peter is well known in choral circles as an educator, adjudicator, singer and conductor. He has been both a regional and National Finale adjudicator for The Big Sing. He was also a member of the NZCF Association of Choral Directors advisory committee.
In an article in The Big Idea, Peter is quoted as saying "For most of my career I've worked in the world of choirs, especially Anglican cathedral choirs. For the last 12 years I've been a secondary school music teacher in a wide range of schools such as Scots College, Porirua College, two schools in the UK, and now Southland Girls' High School. It's quite daunting and humbling to think that I'm representing the creative community and the music sector on the 2025 King's Birthday Honours List."
We look forward to seeing Peter and the two choirs from Southland Girls’ High School at The Big Sing Regional festival in Invercargill later this month.
Here is the full citation for Peter’s ONZM:
Mr Peter de Blois has dedicated his life to music, particularly as a singer, choral conductor, and educator.
Mr de Blois was a founding member of the Dunedin Youth Choir in the late 1980s and a member of the New Zealand Youth Choir before being appointed as its Assistant Musical Director. He sang in the Ely Cathedral Choir in the early 1990s and was a Music Examiner with the Trinity College of London Examinations Board between 1999 and 2007. He served as the Director of Music at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Auckland between 2000 and 2010, where he established two children’s choirs and scholarships for junior choristers and directed the choir at events of importance such as state funerals, and Anzac Day commemorations. He has been both a Regional and National Finale adjudicator for The Big Sing competition prior to becoming a Music Teacher and Head of Department at secondary schools in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Now based at Southland Girls’ High School, he directs the all-comers choir Sanguine and co-directs the auditioned choir Femme which features regularly at The Big Sing National Finale. Mr de Blois is an Honorary Associate of The Royal School of Church Music for services to church music in New Zealand.