Write Notes – The Button Factory: April 2, 2026 (13th Floor Arts Review)
There is something quietly, almost old-school radical about an event that trusts stillness. Write Notes, presented as part of the Keep Curious Salon Series, highlighted the art of storytelling across written /spoken word and song. In the comfy surrounds of The Button Factory, words and music unfolded as an act of shared focus.
Keep Curious is an initiative of Anna Groot and Amy Mansfield, curating events that bring artists and thinkers into close conversation with audiences, typically in small, attentive venues. Previous salons have featured the likes of singer Kristen Morrell, philosopher Professor Andrew Kania, actor Mika Austin, and pianist Hermione Johnson — evenings that sit somewhere between presentation, performance, and thoughtful exchange. Tonight, Groot took on compère duties, with Mansfield in Australia with her H.R. The Musical.
Writer, commentator, raconteur, David Slack opened the evening with a series of readings drawn from his extensive body of work. Delivered with an unforced, conversational cadence, the pieces felt carefully shaped. Slack’s particular strength lies in his ability to isolate the small, easily overlooked moments of everyday life and build them into a picture that slowly engages and reveals. Often sardonic, occasionally droll, his humour served as a tool for sharpening observation. Emotion is weaved through and gently and lovingly exposed with modern Kiwi phrasing and cadence .
Equally telling were the silences Slack allowed to remain. These pauses felt deliberate: moments where a thought was allowed to settle, inviting recognition rather than reaction. The writing functioned as a gentle inquiry into how we notice, mis-notice, and narrate ourselves. Across three pieces, Slack drew the audience into intimate visual storytelling centred on family, memory, and the quiet but significant moments that shape personal history.
Jeremy Schonfeld followed at the piano. A seasoned singer-songwriter with a strong theatrical sensibility, Schonfeld played with a sense of proportion entirely suited to the space. Songs were introduced with brief, self-aware context — never indulgent, never rushed — before being allowed to stand on their own. His voice carried warmth; the piano anchored each story with restraint and clarity.
What distinguished Schonfeld’s set was precisely that restraint. Choruses arrived when they needed to, not when formula demanded them, and songs found their power in unexpected turns — a lyric that undercut sentiment, a harmonic shift that quietly reframed the emotional ground. Humour threaded through lightly, often softening moments of vulnerability rather than masking them.
Schonfeld is an American songwriter and composer and veteran of the New York music scene. His career covers small venues, Broadway development rooms, large collaborative arrangements, festival initiatives and film. A regular visitor for the past two decades to New Zealand through familial connection, this was surprisingly the first time performing his songs publicly here. The work often centres on family, legacy, and the passing of time. Those concerns were evident here and scaled perfectly to the intimacy of the room. Songs included This Old House, I Can See My House From Here and Tuesday & Thursday. These showcased his 2024 film The Father That Stayed.
The evening’s success lay in the balance between the two artists. Slack’s prose sharpened the ear for narrative; Schonfeld’s songs softened it for emotional nuance. The conversation segment reinforced the sense of a meeting point between forms, highlighting a shared concern for storytelling — how meaning shifts depending on voice, medium, and listener. Both artists returned repeatedly to themes of family history, memory, and the environments and inputs that shape who we become. They both embraced emotion with genuineness and transparency.
The Button Factory, an independent arts and culture hub just off Karangahape Road, continues to prove itself an adaptable and welcoming space for precisely this kind of event. Founded in 2024 in a repurposed warehouse, it operates as both venue and social “third place,” hosting everything from live music and performance to workshops and late-night gatherings. Facing the familiar pressures of lease insecurity and rising costs, it nonetheless remains an important home for grassroots arts practice. Over the past two years, its ability to accommodate a wide variety of work — including evenings like this — has been consistently evident.
Write Notes finished with a fourth act in three parts, involving Schonfeld’s daughters joining him on stage, then a Flack lead musical quiz and closing with a gentle whole audience singalong. This was a community event in a community location with a deep sense of connection and camaraderie.
John Hastings
