Taonga Moana is heading to the mainland, the Festival of Colour in Wanaka for a one-night only concert on 14 April.

“For Voices New Zealand, Taonga Moana represents a significant moment in their performing career. When I founded the choir in 1998, the aspiration was to create a Chamber Choir on a professional level, to be visible alongside our national orchestra, national ballet and national opera company. The hope was also that such an ensemble would be something young singers could aspire to for a professional life in ensemble singing. This remains so…It is with great humility and pleasure that I invite you to share the journey of the kuaka with us…” – Karen Grylls, Artistic Director & Conductor

Read more here

Voices Ensembles is a new project offering an exciting opportunity for professional singers in Aotearoa New Zealand to work and perform at a high artistic level. Choirs Aotearoa has received funding from Creative New Zealand to run a pilot scheme that creates small vocal ensembles of Voices NZ singers. The pilot is artistically led by Karen Grylls and Christopher Bruerton (current member of The King’s Singers) and will run from March to October 2021.

Auditions will be held 19 and 26 February.

Check out this additional information and how to apply.

A few weeks out from our brand new reimagining of early music When Light Breaks, we take a look at one person bringing the story to life. We’re excited to be working with Director Jacqueline Coats who has many feathers in her cap. She has worked as a director and an assistant director for the NZ International Festival of the Arts, NZ Opera, Victorian Opera in Melbourne, CubaDupa in Wellington and many more. She has won accolades from the NZ Fringe and the Wellington Theatre Awards, and in 2014 was ‘Director of the Year’ at the Dunedin Theatre Awards for her premiere of Anthony Richie’s This Other Eden.

Jacqueline has a passion for theatre and opera for young people. She has worked as an actor, a music director and a stage director for Capital E National Theatre for Children, most recently directing their touring production of Songs of the Sea. Jacqueline’s theatre credits include the original touring productions of Lines from the Nile and Home; a promenade production of Martin Sherman’s Bent; and co-directing two shows for Wellington Summer Shakespeare. She directed Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona for Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School at the end of 2018.

Jacqueline is not only directing When Light Breaks, but she has crafted the journey of the show, inspired by the quote “we are all broken, that’s how the light gets in.” The concert is set around the ritual of grief, moving through five stages – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, moving from darkness to light over the course of the performance.

The journey of the concert will be guided by puppetry from Little Dog Barking Theatre Company, a first for a Voices New Zealand concert.

Composing for a large choir and a maximum of three instruments – that’s the challenge Choirs Aotearoa NZ is issuing to some adventurous Kiwi composers.

It’s a perfect time for composers to try something new.   Concert plans are in disarray, thanks to the pandemic.  And they’re likely to continue to face disruptions for the foreseeable future.

This is New Zealand’s first national competition specifically for choral song-writing – Compose Aotearoa.

Read more on RNZ

CANZ seeks to protect and honour the national taonga of Te Ao Māori both when we perform with our national choirs and in our day to day operations.

We aim to:

– Increase our usage of Te Reo Māori in our daily operations, publications and concerts

– Publish an Interculturalism Policy

– Develop and enhance relationships with Māori composers

– Ensure all music that is attributable to, or derived from, Māori composers and lyricists is used with proper and appropriate permissions, payments, and attributions

We won’t always get it right and recognise there is a lot to do, so we welcome your ideas or feedback about how we can improve our approach.

Please contact us at ceo@choirsnz.co.nz or chair@choirsnz.co.nz, or feel free to have a chat with us when you’re at our next concert!

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Ka manaakitia, ka whakamānawatia hoki e CANZ te taonga o te ao Māori ina i ā mātou whakaaturanga me ā mātou mahi o ia rā.

Ka whāia e mātou:

– Te pikinga o te whakamahinga o te reo Māori i ā mātou mahi o ia rā, ā mātou whakaputanga, ā mātou whakaaturanga hoki.

– Tētahi kaupapahere whanaungatanga te tuhi.

– Te whanake me te whamana i ngā whanaungatanga ki ngā kaitito Māori.

– Ngā kaitito me ngā kaiwhakaari Māori te whakamana ki ngā whakaaetanga tika, ngā utu tika, ngā mihi tika hoki.

Kāhore mātou e tika ana i ngā wā katoa, ka mutu, e mōhio ana he nui ngā mahi kei mua i a tātou nō reira e pōhiritia ana ō whakaaro mō tō mātou whanaketanga.

Hena koa kia whakapā mai ki a mātou ki ceo@choirsnz.co.nz ki chair@choirsnz.co.nz rānei, e pai ana hoki kia kōrerorero ki a mātou i ā mātou whakaaturanga.

My inspiration for the May and October concerts, especially, comes from the whakataukī  (Māori proverb) Ka mua ka muri  (walking backwards into the future) where the past and the future intertwine, where those in the present stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before, where our composers carry ideas from early music and classical composers into their new kupu and new works. This inclusion of works from the choral canon into the newly commissioned works has always been a clear path for composers and choirs.

At the May Concert, Early Music Reimagined, you will hear Leonie Holmes’s new work Der Weg alongside Bach’s double choir motet Komm, Jesu, komm BWV 229.This concert will feature Eric Renick (marimba, percussion) and James Bush (violoncello), directed by Jacqui Coates, and will present new views of old music and new compositions connected to these works. Expect the unexpected!

The theme continues with the October Concert Mozart Re-imagined, a new work commissioned by Chamber Music NZ from our very own NZ composer, Robert Wiremu. This will be an exciting opportunity for Robert to write a work for 18 voices and instrumental ensemble, with his relevant and contemporary view which references Mozart’s Requiem.

The orchestral collaborations give us the chance to perform Beethoven 9 with the Auckland Philharmonia and Mahler 3 with NZSO featuring an upper voice choir and a children’s choir.

This is indeed an exciting year for us all. See you at the concerts!

Karen Grylls ONZM

Music Director, Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir

Artistic Director, Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand

I am genuinely excited to share our 2022 season with you all. These concerts showcase the magnificence of two monumental requiem settings by Verdi and Mozart, The Sacred Veil, composed and conducted by Eric Whitacre, a performance of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana performed by our three national choirs, and a production for sixteen Voices New Zealand singers, Voices Love Opera, staged by the award-winning opera and theatre director, Jacqueline Coates.

Such collaborations as this season offers give us the point of difference as national choirs. The opportunity to work with the NZSO and their newly appointed Artistic Advisor and Principal Conductor, Gemma New, to perform Mozart’s Requiem and with the APO and Music Director, Giordano Bellincampi, for a once in a lifetime opportunity to perform Verdi’s Requiem are priceless opportunities for our singers and audiences alike.

The versatility and panache of Voices New Zealand singers is captured in Jacqui’s staging for Voices Love Opera. The show is one of the funniest and most engaging we have presented and I’m very proud of the ensemble singers and the professional soloists who bring the stories of the lovers and their various successes (or otherwise) to life. The excerpt from Nico Muhly’s The Two Boys exposes the horrors of relationships in chat rooms and gives the show a particularly contemporary and poignant twist.

Most significant for 2022 are the opportunities for our national choirs viz. Voices New Zealand, New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir, and New Zealand Youth Choir to perform together. First, the opportunity to present two recitals conducted by Grammy award-winning American choral composer, Eric Whitacre, will give the choirs and the listeners the opportunity to hear the first New Zealand performance of The Sacred Veil, a profound meditation on love, life, and loss. Then all three choirs join, together with alumni soloists Natasha Wilson (soprano), Oliver Sewell (tenor) and James Harrison (baritone), in the dramatic and intense work by Carl Orff, Carmina Burana which I will conduct in Holy Trinity Cathedral.

Can’t wait to share this with you all. See you at the concerts!

Karen Grylls ONZM
Artistic Director

Just in time for the festive season, we’re proud to present ‘Follow That Star’, a southern hemisphere Christmas collection of New Zealand Choral Music. In the midst of the pandemic, six New Zealand composers (five are represented here) were commissioned by Voices New Zealand and Artistic Director, Karen Grylls, to reimagine familiar Christmas tunes. The new works set old tunes, some with the atmosphere of centuries old traditions and some with the stories and traditions from New Zealand.

You can read more of Artistic Director Karen Grylls thoughts here.

Stream now on all your favourite music platforms.

1. Commission new works

The national choirs regularly commission work from New Zealand composers which they perform publicly, take on tour and often record. To promote a musical legacy for the choral sector in New Zealand we have also established an annual composition competition for composers under 30 years of age, Compose Aotearoa!. Support from the Amplify Collective makes commissioning new work possible and enables us to create meaningful opportunities for established and emerging composers.

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Celebrated New Zealand choir director Dr Karen Grylls CNZM has announced that 2024 will be her final year as Artistic Director for Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand (CANZ) – the body that manages the country’s four national choirs – as she signals a shift to a new role as Artistic Director Emerita.

Karen has been involved with the national choirs since 1989 when she was appointed music director for New Zealand Youth Choir (NZYC). In 1998, Grylls founded Voices New Zealand chamber choir, our premier national choir, directing both Voices NZ and NZYC for the next 13 years. She’s been Voices’ music director for 26 years now, a role she will continue until the end of 2025 when, Karen says, “It will be time to hand over the reins”.

“Karen’s contribution to our national choirs has been remarkable, and thousands of singers have benefited from her expertise and generosity,” says CANZ Chief Executive, Arne Herrmann, “Her ability to take a sound, a choir, to the next level is second-to-none, and the array of awards her choirs have received is testament to this. Karen’s influence has shaped CANZ into an organisation of excellence with a hunger for quality and musical exploration.”

In 2023, Karen was recognised in the King’s Birthday and Coronation Honours as a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her exceptional contributions to the world of choral music. Karen says that as music director of both the NZ Youth Choir and Voices NZ, her highlights have included NZYC being named “Choir of the World” at the 1999 International Music Eisteddfod in Llangollen, Wales, and just a week later the choir winning the “Grand Prix Slovakia” while on an international tour. “In 2004, we took part in the 43rd International Choral Competition in Gorizia, Italy, and at the 2005 NZ Music Awards our CD, Gaude, was a finalist for Best Classical Album,” Karen says.

Voices New Zealand made its début at the 1998 New Zealand International Arts Festival and later that year won awards at the Tolosa International Choral Competition in Spain. Karen says she’s particularly proud of winning a 2006 NZ Music Tui Award for Best Classical Disc for Spirit of the Land, the 2016 one-off, sell-out New Zealand Festival gala recital with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and the 2018 concerts with The King’s Singers, London, at the New Zealand Festival and the Auckland Arts Festival to celebrate the choirs’ respective anniversaries – 50 years for The Kings Singers and 20 for Voices NZ. In collaboration with taonga puoro artist and composer, Horomona Horo, Voices represented New Zealand at the 2011 World Choral Symposium in Patagonia, and in 2018 toured to the UK, France, Germany and Spain.

“The 90s were watershed years for me, when the relationship with Ngāpō and Pimia Wehi, legendary kapa haka exponents, and the national choirs began. There were joint performances by the NZ Youth Choir and Te Waka Huia at Holy Trinity Cathedral and at the Sydney Opera House during the 1996 World Choral Symposium,” says Karen, “The relationship with Aroha Cassidy-Nanai that followed was one of the most remarkable times for the choir as we were gifted Wehi compositions to perform. The more than 30-year relationship continues today with a new Youth Choir commission from Ngāpō and Pimia’s granddaughter, Tuirina Wehi.”

Karen says she is excited to continue her relationship with CANZ as Artistic Director Emerita; sharing her expertise and experience with the organisation and its people. She’s looking forward to having more time to devote to mentoring and teaching and is passionate about her work with the New Zealand Children’s Choral Academy, of which she is co-artistic director. Karen is also Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Auckland, working with young conductors. 2025 will be another busy year for Karen as she continues her role as Music Director for Voices NZ, with the year culminating in an international tour. No doubt there will also be one, or many, celebrations of Karen and her incredible contribution to the national choirs so far: “It’s been a privilege,” she says.

For more information:

Rachel Healy, Publicist, T: 027 2706105, E: rachel@rachelhealy.co.nz or
Arne Herrmann, Chief Executive, T:027 2761751, E: ceo@choirsnz.co.nz