Building futures through music and media with Cat Percy of Crescendo

Crescendo has long been a creative force dedicated to empowering rangatahi through music and media. Recently, the organisation took an exciting step forward by moving into a brand-new studio within the Te Puna Creative Hub—a space designed to inspire and elevate young talent. 

With a fresh fit-out and expanded facilities, Crescendo is now better equipped than ever to deliver its mission: helping young people discover their potential through creativity. We sat down with Catherine Percy, CEO of Crescendo, to talk about the vision behind the organisation, the impact of the new space, and how it’s opening doors to even more creative opportunities.

Can you share the mission behind Crescendo?

At Crescendo, our Whakatauākī is Whiria te muka Rangatahi, kia tū Rangatira ai, which speaks to shifting young people from young people, into future leaders. We believe that using creativity can support them to change their future trajectory.

We connect professional mentors, audio engineers, producers, and content creators, and provide the right equipment with a holistic approach. Together, that’s our recipe to help young people discover what is meaningful for them in their futures.

How has the new space enhanced your ability to serve rangatahi?

The new space has really levelled up our offering at Crescendo. When we provide a professional space for our rangatahi, they also level up. This has allowed us to have an even greater impact because we now have a professional space with professional products.

We’ve been sponsored and in partnership with Autex Acoustics® for over five years now. The donation of Autex Acoustics products is just the tip of the iceberg in how they have supported us. They’ve been walking alongside us—sponsoring programmes, providing materials, and enabling us to get to where we are today.

In what ways has the new space enabled Crescendo to expand beyond music into other creative areas like digital content?

Our rangatahi aren’t just music-focused—they’re into theatre, dance, and content creation. Because of the larger space we now have, we were able to start a content studio. It might be for a music artist or someone who’s solely interested in content creation—purely in that social media realm. We’ve also identified that content creation has more employment pathways, which is why we’re so excited to offer it now.

How do you see the new studio environment influencing the confidence, creativity, and wellbeing of the young people who come through your programmes?

When young people come in, they’re often coming from a place of disconnection. These four walls provide so much more than just the structure that they hold. Suddenly, they can connect with their peers, they can connect to themselves, and they can understand what it means to take care of themselves in the creative industry as an entrepreneur. Having a professional space really enables young people to get ready for their next professional move.

What services does Crescendo offer?

At Crescendo, we offer a range of services: audiobooks, sound design, and podcast and video production. We also offer our studios for hire—whether it’s a smaller studio for a music producer or engineer, or our content studio, plus, we have a full range of audio professionals. 

For those with limited budgets or community projects, we offer opportunities through our apprenticeship programme—enabling youth in training to gain project experience while giving back to the community.

Can you tell us about some of your programmes?

We offer three tiers of programmes designed to support young people at different stages of their journey. Te Urunga (The Entrance) is for those already writing lyrics, making beats, or recording with friends, helping them gain a deeper understanding of the industry. Te Ara (The Way) is a more advanced programme allowing rangatahi to focus on specific areas of music production or audio engineering while building teamwork and collaboration skills. Finally, our Apprenticeship Programme is where young people work on real projects provided by our commercial team, applying their skills in music production and audio engineering.

All of our programmes are wrapped in our Te Whare Tapa Whā, a holistic way—that means supporting wellbeing. We provide free kai for the rangatahi to eat and take home, and we look at budgeting, finance, teamwork, communication, emails, time management—all these things to support not only technical skills but also soft skills.

Our newest programme is Content Creation. At this stage, it’s exclusively for rangatahi Māori as we’re trying to promote unheard voices in that industry. We really believe there’s a lot of talent out there, and we’re working hard to offer rangatahi opportunities in that space. They’re working on social media, delivering to marketing objectives, creating their own briefs, and working on short films—all wrapped up in that Te Whare Tapa Whā holistic manner.

For more information on programmes and studio hire, visit the Crescendo website.