Robert Hagen

Robert Hagen's love of music — and technology — began early. As a child, he wired up telephones across rooms in his family's London house, played the church organ, and sang in the local choir with his brother Andrew. When he was 13, the family emigrated to Wellington. In 1970, fresh from high school, he got a trainee job in state radio, where he learnt about capturing sounds in both recording studios and larger venues.

Early in 1974 Hagen headed overseas. There were hopes of becoming an intercontinental truck driver in Europe, as a way to see the continent; instead he lucked into a job as a technical operator for David Frost's LBC, the first licenced private radio station in the United Kingdom. After a year as head engineer at Studio G, a small London recording studio, he took on a similar role at Montreal's Le Studio, where he got to work with Queen producer Roy Thomas Baker and band Pilot. Hagen would have stayed longerr, but his resident's permit was about to expire.

Back in New Zealand by 1976, Hagen returned to Broadcasting House in Wellington and began a decade as a recording engineer for Radio New Zealand. There he handled a wide mix of work, including jazz music, radio ads, and music for television — including the soundtrack of big budget miniseries The Governor. He won eight NZ Radio Awards for music production.

Hagen was growing increasingly interested in directing for television. In 1986 he was invited by Malcolm Kemp to produce and direct programmes for TVNZ's Entertainment Department. Hagen took over the producing of classical music show Opus, after producer and presenter Bill McCarthy decided to return to sports programmes. When Opus folded four years later, concert coverage was folded into arts show 10am.  There were also a number of shows and concerts bolstering young musicians, including the Mobil Song Quest, Showcase and the Young Musicians Competition.

Hagen helped establish better ways to showcase the NZ Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra's musicians were unhappy at the acoustics at Studio 8 at Avalon. They also found the large number of rehearsals required for television straining. Hagen wanted to resolve these issues, while still capturing a well-rehearsed and lively production. He negotiated with NZSO manager Peter Nisbet so that Opus could capture the orchestra performing live in venues around the country. Hagen did however produce some recordings in Studio 8 with the NZSO, including four Rachmaninoff concertos featuring pianist Michael Houston. 

Practices are starkly different between live music and television. "In television, it's common to run rehearsals over and over, to make sure the technical details are correct. But that can be exhausting for performers." It was in Hagen’s best interests to resolve these differences. "I was a performer myself,” he explains. “I sang in the Wellington Cathedral Choir for many years. And that gave me the artist’s perspective on performance, which is very important to know when you’re directing artists."

In 1991, Hagen was one of many to accept redundancy, when TVNZ closed most of its production departments. Shortly after, he established his company C4 Productions. In the early 2000s, when new TV channel C4 was close to launch, executives failed to check the companies register to ensure the name hadn't already been taken. Hagen made a deal. Later, he renamed his company Arts and Entertainment Productions.

Hagen's company amassed a long list of music productions, from Christmas cathedral specials and Christmas in the Park, to live concert specials featuring everyone from the NZ Symphony Orchestra to Goldenhorse. There were also special one-off events — millennium concerts, sequicentennial celebrations at Covent Garden, and a service marking the death of Sir David Lange. Hagen has recorded Hayley Westenra, Howard Morrison, James Galway and British conductors Neville Mariner and Ron Goodwin. When hit reality show Dancing with the Stars launched in New Zealand, he was signed to direct the first episode. 

A key early gig after leaving TVNZ arose thanks to a chat with ex TVNZ staffer Simon Morris in a Wellington cafe. "He'd just come back from the Lotteries Commission. He said, 'they wanted me to direct their live draws — why don’t you go down and see them?'" That chance meeting launched a 23-year long gig, directing the Saturday and Wednesday Lotto draws. "The Lotto work provided a regular income. It also enabled me to see a good deal of New Zealand." Lotto got him on board for a series of mini documentaries, Kiwi Winners, and sent him to San Diego for a live Lotto draw at the 1995 America's Cup.

Producing live television is a fickle and sometimes terrifying process. Hagen recalls some stories with a mixture of fondness and dread. During an NZ Symphony Orchestra performance at the 1987 International Arts Festival in Wellington, the broadcast was being 'linked' back to Avalon via microwave. “The guys in the link truck decided they wanted a cup of tea, and they plugged in the kettle and blew the fuse. We lost the link to Avalon, which means we lost about six minutes of programme. We did some crafty editing. Hopefully no one noticed that a section of Beethoven's Sixth was missing."

Another event of note was an NZSO concert for the America's Cup, starring Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. Coverage of the Quayside Concert was set to air with only an hours delay, to enable the insertion of commercial breaks. But issues with getting the crowd seated pushed the start time back. “We were thinking that we’re not going to be able to get it to air on time. But that night there were major bushfires in Australia, and the news ran over by 20 minutes. We were saved! The concert went smoothly… well, we nearly died putting it to air.”  

Thankfully things often went much more smoothly. Hagen has high praise for opera singer Jonathan Lemalu: "I directed this concert down in Dunedin… He was such a superb artist; he really engaged the audience. I could’ve just sat on a single shot of Jonathan the whole time, and he would’ve held the audience’s attention. You don’t see that very often. He was amazing." Lemalu's Homecoming Concert was nominated in the Sport or Event Coverage category, at the 2005 Qantas TV Awards. 

While multi-camera directing on live music programmes is Hagen’s specialty, he has also collaborated on several documentaries with long-time colleague Murray Ferguson. Series Ngā Waiata o Te Iwi looked at the history of Māori composers and songs. Later Kiri Te Kanawa mentioned an idea for a documentary, which became Rhodes, Actor Singer. It explored Phillip Rhodes’ difficulties overcoming a challenging childhood to become an opera singer, thanks partly to assistance from the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation. It was nominated for Best Documentary at the 2012 NZ TV Awards. 

Earlier, Hagen and Ferguson produced two-hour Māori Television special Pushing the Boundaries. It chronicled the journey of Kiwi violinist Elena, as she brought her orchestral show Elena’s Cultural Symphony to Shanghai's International Arts Festival. Capturing the concert proved challenging — five minutes in, the Chinese director stepped out to take a phone call, and never returned. Hagen stepped up and directed the filming of the performance, with help from an interpreter. “So we ended up with an English-speaking director and a Chinese-speaking TV crew, covering a musical event in te reo. Fortunately it worked out alright.”

In 2015 the Lotto broadcast moved to Auckland, after TVNZ sold the Avalon studios. "I thought, well it's probably time to retire. But my wife had another idea. She said, 'you’ve always wanted to drive a coach'." Hagen still had his heavy transport qualifications, from when he’d hoped to work as a driver in Europe. These days, he enjoys the sights and sounds of the North Island, as a bus driver and tour guide.

Profile written by Nina Johnston; published on 21 March 2025

Sources include
Robert Hagen
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision catalogue. Accessed 21 March 2025