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Mike Chunn

New Zealand musician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 6, 2024
Entity authorityQ6846325 ↗
Source-derived summary

Jonathan Michael Chunn (born 8 June 1952) is a former member of the New Zealand bands Split Enz and Citizen Band. He performed alongside his brother Geoff Chunn in both bands. His musical performing career was cut short due to agoraphobia.

Biography

Chunn was born in London, England, he spent eleven years as Director of New Zealand operations for the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), retiring from the role at the end of October 2003. He was CEO of Play It Strange Trust until November 2023, which encourages teenagers to try songwriting, and which he founded in April 2004.

He has published several books, including the Split Enz biography Stranger Than Fiction.

In the 2002 Queen's Birthday and Golden Jubilee Honours, Chunn was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to music. He was promoted to Companion of the same order in the 2015 New Year Honours, for services to music and mental health awareness.

Chunn has been involved in numerous endeavours, including founding the Play it Strange Trust.

In 2016, he was presented with a Scroll of Honour from the Variety Artists Club of New Zealand for services to New Zealand entertainment.

Editorial summary

“Mike Chunn” enters the record as new Zealand musician. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Mike, Chunn and Zealand can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1952, 2003, 2023, 2004—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1952-06-08. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Mike, Chunn and Zealand.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Mike Chunn” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Mike, Chunn and Zealand provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 6, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q6846325. VIAF identifies the subject as 269691165. The Library of Congress control number is n94082071. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1952, 2003, 2023 and 2004.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Mike Chunn”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Mike Chunn primary sources, Mike Chunn archive and Mike research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Mike Chunn”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Mike Chunn” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.