Janet Roddick is a New Zealand musician, singer and composer who belongs to screen composers group Plan 9.
Roddick was born in Hamilton, attended primary school in Lower Hutt and secondary school in Invercargill. [1] She attended the University of Otago, initially studying maths, music, psychology and geography before completing a performance degree in classical singing studying under Honor McKellar. [1] [2] [3]
While at the University of Otago, Roddick performed with the Dunedin Operatic Society in The Boy Friend and Jesus Christ Superstar and at the Fortune Theatre singing Stephen Sondheim songs. [1] In 1984, Roddick completed a performance certificate at the Wellington Polytechnic with Flora Edwards. [1] During her time as a student she was exposed to and became aware of different repertoire (from Webern and Schoenberg to arias), styles of singing and different schools of teaching singing. [1] She made a decision not to pursue a career in classical singing in favour of branching out into other musical styles and developing her improvisational skills and vocal sounds. [4] [3] She was introduced to jazz and improvisation when she joined jazz trio Jungle Suite as vocalist with cellist and guitarist David Long and saxophonist Neill Duncan. [1] [3] Jungle Suite was part of a wider group called the Braille Collective and the larger group the Primitive Art Group. [3]
Roddick was a member of the band Four Volts with Neill Duncan, Anthony and David Donaldson which became Six Volts in 1987 when Long and Steve Roche joined. [4] [5] The band aimed to introduce a wider audience to their music. [3] In 1988, Six Volts played the music for The Threepenny Opera at Downstage Theatre with Roddick playing the part of Pirate Jenny. [1] [2] [4]
Six Volts attended the Edinburgh Festival in 1990 but split up at the end of that year after recording their second album Stretch released in 1991. [1] [5] Roddick then went on to perform with several other groups: Big Fiddle, Babes in the Mood, Cutlery Set and Toro Loca Banda. [6] These collaborations with other musicians enabled Roddick to perform in musical styles such as country and western with Big Fiddle and satirical musical revues with Babes in the Wood. [7] [5] Roddick, Roche, David Donaldson and Tim Robinson formed The Brainchilds, writing their own material. [1]
Roddick, David Donaldson and Roche formed Plan 9, a screen composing company which has worked on music and sound design for movies by directors Peter Jackson, Costa Botes and Gaylene Preston. [3] [8] Films they have worked on include Forgotten Silver, The Dead Room, The Frighteners, The Lord of the Rings, King Kong, and Perfect Strangers. [3] [8] Plan 9 won the Silver Scroll award at the APRA (New Zealand) Music Awards in 2022 for their work The Bewilderness written as a response to the strangeness experienced by the 2020 Covid 19 lockdown. [9]
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