Welcome to the world of Curio Film&Music and KettleWink
Tony is a sound engineer, producer musician, composer, sound designer and film-maker.
A multi instrumentalist, he is well recognised for live solo and ensemble performances on acoustic finger style guitar, renonators (dobros) and steel guitars.
Tony is a prolific composer and continues to challenge the boundaries of musical styles, working across a vairietry of genres from americana and bluegrass to celtic and anywhere across the traditional dividing lines.
The journey in film started with composing music for drama shorts, followed closely by sound design, cinematography, editing, composing for features, directing and producing documentary projects.
Tony's music and media projects at times merge to create new and innovative productions.
Over the years he has followed his passion for the creative arts and challenged the boundaries to create a unique voice in music and film. Tony manages to combine his multi disciplines as musician, composer, documentary film maker, videographer, photographer, film editor, sound designer, producer and performer, to entertain and inspire. This is now culminated to create the world of KettleWink.
As a musician, Tony is well known in folk music circles for his work on the resonator guitar and in recent years as a member of the band Across The Great Divide. Tony’s resonator and guitar performances cover a wide range of styles from drawn from Americana, Celtic origins along with many original compositions.
Tony was instantly hooked on the resonator and worked to uncover the mysterious versatility that produces speed, bite and exquisite melody. Over the last six years he has travelled to Nashville for Rob Ickes ResoSummit and studied under the tutelage of some of the best resonator and steel players in the business including Rob Ickes, Sally Van Meter, Mike Witcher, Andy Hall, Cindy Cashdollar, Randy Kohrs and Jerry Douglas.
On his first trip to Nashville Tony managed to book a spot at the world famous Bluebird Café. On being invited back to the stage for the final number, he went out on a limb, threw caution to the wind and sang his own song Why Why Why Wairarapa, a performance that had the whole audience learning Maori place names and joining in a rousing chorus that brought the house down.
Tony’s first short film, Te Aurere me te Papaa (Passion and Conflict), was selected by National Geographic for their All Roads Film Festival and premiered at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Inspired by the film makers and adventurers he met, started Tony on a journey of feature documentary films, indigenous and social justice projects and media that made a difference. This culminated in the unique film “The Snapper Sandwich”. Arguably a world first documentary feature film where narration and music was performed live onstage by the director.