Marlon Williams, Geneva AM, Tom Scott and Jazmine Mary are among the nominees up for the 2026 Taite Music Prize.

The award, named in honour of late Kiwi music journalist Dylan Taite, celebrates the best of New Zealand's musical output.

Ahead of the ceremony on April 29, entertainment correspondent Steve Newall recapped the nominees.

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Marlon Williams, Geneva AM, Tom Scott and Jazmine Mary are among the nominees up for the 2026 Taite Music Prize.
The award, named in honour of late Kiwi music journalist Dylan Taite, celebrates the best of New Zealand's musical output.
Ahead of the ceremony on April 29, entertainment correspondent Steve Newall recapped the nominees.
LISTEN ABOVE

News, opinion, analysis, lifestyle and entertainment – we’ve got your Sunday morning listening covered with The Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin on Newstalk ZB.

The Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin

Steve Newall: entertainment correspondent on the upcoming 2026 Taite awards

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/30a28751-067f-495c-aa97-b4370182f7f5/transcript

James Reyne is regarded as an Australian musical icon thanks to his success in Australian Crawl, and he's set to celebrate the band's success in his new tour.

Alongside the full band, Reyne will be performing the hits of Australian Crawl next month in Auckland and Wellington.

Reyne says he knows it's unusual to celebrate the fall of a band, but it felt right.

"I'm very grateful for that, as I get older, I realise how grateful I am." 

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James Reyne is regarded as an Australian musical icon thanks to his success in Australian Crawl, and he's set to celebrate the band's success in his new tour.
Alongside the full band, Reyne will be performing the hits of Australian Crawl next month in Auckland and Wellington.
Reyne says he knows it's unusual to celebrate the fall of a band, but it felt right.
"I'm very grateful for that, as I get older, I realise how grateful I am."&nbsp;
LISTEN ABOVE

James Reyne: lead singer of Australian Crawl on his The Fall of Crawl tour

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/60e3d3e2-d21f-4e2c-8a0e-b43800179cb6/transcript

Influencer and mental health advocate Jazz Thornton has been campaigning hard for stalking to be criminalised, with new reforms set to be added to the Crimes Act next month.

Thornton was targeted by obsessive messages from a stranger overseas back in 2024, and things escalated when the individual flew to New Zealand and turned up at her house.

Inspired by her own story and those of others, Jazz has created a new documentary ‘Stalked’ - which is coming soon to Sky.  

"It was the unpredictability, and you have the commander of the police on the phone and all of these detectives, and cameras are getting installed in your house...and you know there's concern from the police and you can't know why."

LISTEN ABOVE

Influencer and mental health advocate Jazz Thornton has been campaigning hard for stalking to be criminalised, with new reforms set to be added to the Crimes Act next month.
Thornton was targeted by obsessive messages from a stranger overseas back in 2024, and things escalated when the individual flew to New Zealand and turned up at her house.
Inspired by her own story and those of others, Jazz has created a new documentary ‘Stalked’ - which is coming soon to Sky. &nbsp;
"It was the unpredictability, and you have the commander of the police on the phone and all of these detectives, and cameras are getting installed in your house...and you know there's concern from the police and you can't know why."
LISTEN ABOVE

Jazz Thornton: influencer and mental health advocate on her brand-new documentary series

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/d68c27a0-47e6-478f-885e-b4380011e352/transcript

The Other Catherine by Lauren Keenan: this is the story of two women bound together through generations of a family, each making their own way in a turbulent world. In 1793, eighteen year old Catherine is sentenced to the colonies and finds herself in the abject misery of the hold of a convict ship sailing to Australia where, despite the horrors and deprivation, she manages to forge enduring bonds with some of the other convicts. Two generations later, another Catherine - known in her native reo as Keita - finds herself and her loved ones caught up in the arrival of sealers and whalers to the shores of Aotearoa, and a profound change to their way of life. History and blood unites these two women, each of whom navigate their way through periods of great change.

Murder in Paris ’68 by Edward Chisholm. Paris in 1968 was a world of chic, celebrity and glamour alongside a parallel underworld in which the demimonde lived dangerous and darker lives. Alain Delon was a movie star of the era - globally famous, he moved in fashionable circles. When a young man was found dead on a road outside Paris it was initially assumed he was indigent, but his clothes and well manicured fingernails told a different story and he was soon linked to Delon. This is extraordinary narrative nonfiction in which politicians, police, diplomats, gangsters, petty criminals and a raft of famous names became caught up in scandal and corruption. 

LISTEN ABOVE

The Other Catherine by Lauren Keenan: this is the story of two women bound together through generations of a family, each making their own way in a turbulent world. In 1793, eighteen year old Catherine is sentenced to the colonies and finds herself in the abject misery of the hold of a convict ship sailing to Australia where, despite the horrors and deprivation, she manages to forge enduring bonds with some of the other convicts. Two generations later, another Catherine - known in her native reo as Keita - finds herself and her loved ones caught up in the arrival of sealers and whalers to the shores of Aotearoa, and a profound change to their way of life. History and blood unites these two women, each of whom navigate their way through periods of great change.
Murder in Paris ’68 by Edward Chisholm. Paris in 1968 was a world of chic, celebrity and glamour alongside a parallel underworld in which the demimonde lived dangerous and darker lives. Alain Delon was a movie star of the era - globally famous, he moved in fashionable circles. When a young man was found dead on a road outside Paris it was initially assumed he was indigent, but his clothes and well manicured fingernails told a different story and he was soon linked to Delon. This is extraordinary narrative nonfiction in which politicians, police, diplomats, gangsters, petty criminals and a raft of famous names became caught up in scandal and corruption.&nbsp;
LISTEN ABOVE

Whitcoulls Recommends: The Other Catherine and Murder in Paris ’68

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/7784f840-c291-422a-924b-ad9000bbad71/clips/dc77aefc-4518-4af9-9fc0-b438000b6e28/transcript

Steve Newall: entertainment correspondent on the upcoming 2026 Taite awards

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