About Joseph Allan

The School Years

Many years ago Joseph's grandfather gave him a violin for his seventh birthday. He also started saxophone when he was a bit older. In the 1980s he played in various school orchestras & bands, APPA Orchestra, Manukau Youth Orchestra, Papakura Civic Orchestra and Auckland Youth Symphonic Band.

Kedgley Music Centre

In 1987 he started teaching at the Kedgley Music Centre. He kept this part time job for the next 25 years teaching wind and brass for the first half and strings the latter. During the first six years he taught flute. In the mid to late 1990s switched to teaching saxophone, trumpet and trombone as well as taking over the Kedgley Symphonic Band. To broaden the sound of the Kedgley Symphonic Band he taught some of the students less common instruments such as euphonium, horn and tuba. In the late 1990s he started up the Kedgley Music Centre Stage Band.

Playing in Bands

In the 1990s he played violin, french horn, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, tuba in the Papakura Civic Orchestra, Auckland Youth Symphonic Band, Auckland Wind Orchestra and Auckland University Stage Band. He also guest conductor of the Auckland Youth Symphonic Band under Rod McLeay.

Manukau Youth Orchestra

In 2000 he re-established the Manukau Youth Orchestra and switched to teaching violin at Kedgley. From 2005 to 2007 he ran a string programme as part of the MYO where he taught violin, viola, cello and double bass at Greenmeadows Intermediate School and Manurewa Intermediate School.

In addition to his work at Kedgley, Joseph taught clarinet in the 1990s at the Manurewa Music School based at Greenmeadows Intermediate School. He also took the Jazz Band at Papatoetoe High School and did some relieving at Pakuranga College on trumpet, saxophone and clarinet in the late 2000s.

At the end of 2011 he finished up at the Kedgley Music Centre to concentrate on establishing a new string programme at a local primary school. At the beginning of 2012 he started the string programme at Clendon Park Primary with forty students then half way through 2014 expanded the teaching programme into three other schools teaching 150 students throughout Manurewa.