About Jan Hellriegel 2026

Songwriter. Composer. Author. Creative producer. Music publisher. And, occasionally, someone who wonders why she has given herself quite so much to do.

Jan Hellriegel has spent more than three decades making things; songs, records, books, shows, businesses and, increasingly, projects that refuse to fit neatly into any one of those categories.

At heart, she is a musician.

Her love affair with music began at the piano as a child and continued through vocal training as a teenager with Dame Sister Mary Leo, the legendary teacher whose students included Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.

After an early recording adventure with her brother Rob’s band, Working With Walt, Jan headed to Otago University, where she co-founded the all-female indie band Cassandra’s Ears. The band toured relentlessly, built a devoted following and independently financed and released two EPs before calling it a day in 1989.

Then things got interesting.

Finding her own voice

In 1990 Jan signed with Warner Music New Zealand, becoming the label’s first local signing and, at the time, the first New Zealand female singer-songwriter to be signed by a major label on a full development deal.

Those early Warner years included songwriting sessions with American songwriter JD Souther and recording with Nick Morgan and Don McGlashan at AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd’s Mountain Road farmhouse studio.

Jan’s debut solo album arrived in 1992. The Way I Feel reached No. 2 in New Zealand, with two further singles making the Top 10.

That period also took her onto stages with some extraordinary artists. She supported David Byrne and The Cure, and later, after moving to Melbourne and releasing her critically acclaimed second album Tremble, supported Jeff Buckley on his Australian tour.

Buckley invited her back for his next Australasian visit, including his now legendary performance at Auckland’s St James Theatre in February 1996.

There were records, tours, record companies, successes, disappointments and all the strange machinery that accompanies a life spent trying to turn something as intangible as a song into a career.

Eventually Jan discovered something important: making the work was only half the story.

Understanding what happened to it afterwards mattered too.

The independent years

After leaving Warner in 1997, Jan began taking greater control of her creative life.

She independently released the Melusine EP in 1999, then stepped away from the relentless cycle of the music business for a while to have a family, work, think — and figure a few things out.

The songs, however, never stopped.

In 2009 she returned to the studio, recording All Grown Up at Neil Finn’s Roundhead Studios with producer Wayne Bell and some of New Zealand’s finest musicians.

Released through her own Blind Date label, the album was met with widespread critical acclaim and became one of those particularly satisfying moments in an artist’s life: making exactly the record you wanted to make and discovering that other people wanted to hear it too.

Lost Songs followed in 2013, rescuing unreleased recordings and demos that had quite literally been gathering dust in the basement.

But Jan’s creative world was becoming bigger than albums.

When a song isn't just a song

In 2018 Jan released one of her most ambitious works, Sportsman of the Year – A Suburban Philosophy.

It began with music but grew into something much larger: an album, a beautifully produced book, photography, twelve written chapters corresponding to twelve songs, podcasts and a live show that toured New Zealand.

It brought together many of the things that now define Jan’s work — music, words, storytelling, design, performance and the pleasure of following an idea to wherever it wants to go.

Sometimes that means writing a three-minute song.

Sometimes, apparently, it means accidentally creating an entire universe around it.

Her creative work has brought recognition along the way, including RIANZ/Recorded Music NZ Songwriter of the Year, two APRA Silver Scroll finalist placings and a Pride In Print Gold Award, alongside numerous recordings, performances and screen placements.

She also wrote and produced Read About It, the theme song for the Books in Homes children’s literacy programme.

Her 2025/26 If Not Now, When? shows offered another glimpse of where that creative curiosity is heading next.

And there is, inevitably, another project underway.

Then there’s the business of creativity

Somewhere along the journey Jan also became fascinated, and occasionally infuriated, by the machinery behind creative work.

Copyright. Publishing. Licensing. Contracts. Royalties. Intellectual property. Synchronisation. Who owns what. Who gets paid. Who doesn't. And why creative people should understand the value of what they make.

That curiosity developed into a second career.

Jan worked as General Manager New Zealand for Native Tongue Music Publishing (now BMG / Concord Music Publishing ) before establishing Songbroker Music Publishing, alongside her work with Aeroplane Music Services.

Songbroker has grown into a significant independent Australasian music publishing operation, representing songwriters and composers working across a wide range of musical styles.

Jan’s work has encompassed music publishing, copyright administration, licensing, music supervision, synchronisation, contracts, royalties and rights management. She has also become a longstanding advocate for creators understanding and protecting their intellectual property.

Her specialist knowledge has seen her speak on copyright and music rights, including for IPSANZ, and serve as an expert witness in Eight Mile Style v New Zealand National Party.

Before and alongside all of this have been senior roles spanning marketing, communications, sponsorship, fundraising, television, advertising, charities and business development.

It turns out that knowing how to make something and knowing how to get it into the world are rather useful skills to have in the same head.

Creative first. Business savvy second.

Jan has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Otago, studying English, Education, Music and Philosophy, and later undertook business and information management study at the University of Auckland, alongside ongoing professional development in intellectual property, commercial risk, marketing and digital strategy.

But the thread connecting everything has always been creativity.

A song can become a record.

A record can become a book.

A book can become a show.

An idea can become a business.

And experience, including the bits that didn't go according to plan, can become something useful to pass on to the next person trying to make a life from their imagination.

More than three decades after those first bands, records and tours, Jan is still writing, composing, producing, publishing, advocating and dreaming up things that probably seemed considerably simpler when she first thought of them.

The creative hat goes on first.

The business hat is there to make sure the creative one gets to stay on.