{"id":470197,"date":"2026-06-10T12:37:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T12:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/470197\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T12:37:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T12:37:09","slug":"erica-stanford-announces-300k-funding-boost-for-the-big-sing-choral-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/470197\/","title":{"rendered":"Erica Stanford announces $300k funding boost for The Big Sing choral festival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"xRCtHSZoMFoDBmw\" style=\"display:none\">Stanford said music plays an important role in learning and wellbeing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"xRCtHSZoMFoDBmw\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cMusic builds strong foundations for learning, confidence, and can lead to new opportunities both within and outside the classroom,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"xRCtHSZoMFoDBmw\" style=\"display:none\">The funding comes from the Ministry of Education baseline and sits alongside the $5.6 million allocated in Budget 2026 for music kits in schools.<\/p>\n<p class=\"xRCtHSZoMFoDBmw\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWhat we want is to make singing, music and the chance to play an instrument available to every student,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"xRCtHSZoMFoDBmw\" style=\"display:none\">The Big Sing includes regional competitions across the country, from Auckland to Southland, before national performances.<\/p>\n<p class=\"xRCtHSZoMFoDBmw\" style=\"display:none\">&#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/\">RNZ<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stanford said music plays an important role in learning and wellbeing. \u201cMusic builds strong foundations for learning, confidence,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[93640,694,8834,11231,50245,5031,5131,2082,738,111,43,139,69,120438,5032,223],"class_list":["post-470197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-300k","tag-announces","tag-big","tag-boost","tag-choral","tag-erica","tag-festival","tag-for","tag-funding","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sing","tag-stanford","tag-the"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}