Proud Cook Island tenor 28 year old Ridge Ponini completed his Honours degree in Music at the University of Otago, majoring in classical voice performance under the tuition of Judy Bellingham.
In 2021 Ridge was awarded the Enari Iosefa Opera Award from Creative New Zealand. Ridge was also a semi-finalist for the Lexus Prestigious song quest for 2022 and was a studio artist with New Zealand Opera in 2023.
Ridge has been selected to attend the New Zealand Opera school for four consecutive years and was also part of New Zealand Operas schools tour cast that performed ‘Sleeping Beauty’ for over 10,000 tamariki in 2023.