Michael Houstoun, Feilding, CNZM, for services as a pianist
Mr Michael Houstoun is an internationally renowned concert pianist, who has championed New Zealand music. He has been instrumental in the promotion of New Zealand music having included works by New Zealand composers in his performances since the mid-1970s. His anthology of New Zealand composers won Best Classical Album at the 2007 New Zealand Music Awards. He was highly placed in the Van Cliburn, Leeds and Tchaikovsky piano competitions in the 1970s and 1980s. He successfully overcame the potentially career-ending disease, focal hand dystonia, a neurological condition that causes involuntary muscular contractions, a feat that was recorded in the 2005 documentary ‘Piano Man’. He is patron of the Nelson School of Music, Palmerston North’s Regent on Broadway Theatre, the New Zealand Music Examinations Board, and the Kerikeri International Piano Competition. Mr Houstoun has been awarded honorary doctorates in literature and music from Massey University and Victoria University of Wellington respectively. He received The Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate Award in 2007, and the Turnovsky Prize, for contribution to the arts, in 1982.