Special Star Amy Szostak passes away
25 March 2009 Amy Szostak, who wrote the song Special Star played during the 2008 IHC Telecom Art Awards, passed away in Lower Hutt on Monday 23 March.
Amy, who was the subject of a profile on TV3’s 60 Minutes programme last year, was a painter, writer, singer and song writer, and “a galvanising force who could make people do all sorts of extraordinary things”.
Madeline McNamara, co-artistic director of Acting Up, an organisation providing performance opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities or learning difficulties, says Amy was having a wonderful year working on two projects dear to her heart: developing a film and getting her book published.
Last year, Amy wrote a story to be developed into a film featuring her Special Star song and members of Acting Up. With Wellington filmmakers Tony Hiles and Alyx Duncan on board, filming got underway in February.
“The film will go ahead and be a fitting tribute to Amy and her unique vision,” Madeline says. “ We have lost a huge creative presence in the community and everyone who knew her will feel a profound loss.
“Her brother described her as ‘mysterious, curious, full of magic, full of wonder, one of a kind’. Amy was a light that people followed.”
Over the years, Arts Access Aotearoa has had a warm association with Amy. “Amy was an inspiration, an artist with attitude and energy. We offer our deepest sympathy to her family and friends,” says Executive Director Marianne Taylor.
Amy was born in 1975 with a very weak heart and has undergone a lot of major surgery. She achieved a great deal in her life, including:
• a driving force in the establishment of Acting Up Charitable Trust in 1994
• third prize in the 2006 IHC Telecom Art Awards
• singing solo and with Haley Westenra at Christmas in the Park, Lower Hutt in 2001
• singing in numerous concerts, celebrating or fundraising for people with disabilities
• performing in the 2002 Toi Whakaari production of Mother Courage, directed by Miranda Harcourt
• participating in the television show, New Zealand Idol, in 2004
• writing the song, Special Star, which was played during the 2008 IHC Telecom Art Awards
• having her work featured in the Australian exhibition Without Borders: Outsider Art in an Antipodean Context in 2008
• writing a book called Radar the Viking, which was serialised by Access Radio in 2006.
• having her work featured in My House Surrounded by a Thousand Suns at TheNewDowse, July to October 2008.