Meet Fergus – the 2024 Composer in Residence at Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand!

Originally from Taupō, Fergus Byett moved to Hamilton in 2019 to study Classical Performance (Piano) at the University of Waikato. With the support of a Sir Edmund Hillary Scholarship, he completed his undergraduate studies under Katherine Austin, and in 2023 he completed his Masters under Dr. Rae de Lisle. In the same year, Fergus won the University of Waikato Concerto Competition, Bach Competition and Chamber Music Competition, as well as Recital and Concerto classes at the 2023 Hamilton Competitions. His compositions have won national awards, including in the ‘Compose Aotearoa!’ Composition Competition, and in 2024, he currently holds Composer-in-Residence roles with Choirs Aotearoa and the Auckland Youth Choir. He has also completed several commissions for community ensembles in the Waikato. He is a collaborative pianist at the University of Waikato, where he has also worked as a music theory and piano tutor, and he is a founding Artistic Director of the Waikato Youth Choir. Fergus is one of the organists at the Waikato Cathedral Church of St. Peter, where he has accompanied the Cathedral Singers since 2023. As a Summer Research Scholar, Fergus also worked on an article which has now been published in the British Journal of Music Education, and he is a fluent speaker of te reo Māori, having recently completed a Level 7 Diploma through Te Wānanga o Aotearoa.

Meet Fergus – the 2024 Composer in Residence at Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand!

Originally from Taupō, Fergus Byett moved to Hamilton in 2019 to study Classical Performance (Piano) at the University of Waikato. With the support of a Sir Edmund Hillary Scholarship, he completed his undergraduate studies under Katherine Austin, and in 2023 he completed his Masters under Dr. Rae de Lisle. In the same year, Fergus won the University of Waikato Concerto Competition, Bach Competition and Chamber Music Competition, as well as Recital and Concerto classes at the 2023 Hamilton Competitions. His compositions have won national awards, including in the ‘Compose Aotearoa!’ Composition Competition, and in 2024, he currently holds Composer-in-Residence roles with Choirs Aotearoa and the Auckland Youth Choir. He has also completed several commissions for community ensembles in the Waikato. He is a collaborative pianist at the University of Waikato, where he has also worked as a music theory and piano tutor, and he is a founding Artistic Director of the Waikato Youth Choir. Fergus is one of the organists at the Waikato Cathedral Church of St. Peter, where he has accompanied the Cathedral Singers since 2023. As a Summer Research Scholar, Fergus also worked on an article which has now been published in the British Journal of Music Education, and he is a fluent speaker of te reo Māori, having recently completed a Level 7 Diploma through Te Wānanga o Aotearoa.

We had a wonderful tour down south to Christchurch and the West Coast back in April, and our thanks to everyone who made it happen. We did get rained on a little, but luckily singing isn’t an outside sport! Our three public concerts were packed, and we had the eyes of the world on us at South New Brighton Primary School, when a video of our performance there went viral and received over 280,000 views from a truly global audience. We received comments from Ireland, USA, Newfoundland, UK, Scotland, Germany, Belgium, Australia, Brazil, the Bahamas, Poland, France, Iceland, Netherlands, Philippines, South Africa and more!

Follow the link below for a recap video of the tour, with footage from our school visits, pop-up performances and concerts.

Read more here

You can read the summary of our new Interculturalism Policy here

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!

_____________________________________________________________________

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.

You can read the summary of our new Interculturalism Policy here

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!

_____________________________________________________________________

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.

You can read the summary of our new Interculturalism Policy here.

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!

_____________________________________________________________________

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.

You can read the summary of our new Interculturalism Policy here.

We aim to:

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

– publish an Interculturalism Policy (see summary here)

– 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!

_____________________________________________________________________

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.

Chamber Music New Zealand ‘Reimagining Mozart’, Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir, Karen Grylls (Music Director), Robert Wiremu (composer). Wellington, October 29, 2023.  

Elizabeth Kerr: 

Voices New Zealand: Mozart’s Requiem tells a tragic story

“Wiremu’s reimagined Requiem uses Mozart’s glorious and familiar music throughout, though not always in the order Mozart intended. Telling the story of the Erebus disaster, Wiremu, singer and composer, uses highly imaginative instrumental and vocal timbres, depicting both the scenes and the anguished emotions of the story.
There’s no doubt that direct use of Mozart’s music by Wiremu to tell this tragic story is culturally and musically audacious. It would be easy for it to become merely obvious and literal, or perhaps overly and mawkishly sentimental. Making changes to the composition of a master like Mozart could seem presumptuous. Threading Māori concepts through the whole narrative might risk cultural overload.

With great subtlety and imagination these pitfalls are avoided in this profoundly moving work of art which held the audience’s hushed attention throughout”.

“…and when a small child wailed in the audience near the end, it felt as if that crying represented our collective grief. Many in the full house rose to their feet, tears in their eyes, for a standing ovation”.

You can read the full review here! 

Peter Menchen: 

Robert Wiremu’s REIMAGINING MOZART – a mind-enlarging expression of human tragedy in music

“Apart from it all having  a superlatives-exhausting effect from a critical point of view, I found as an audience member, composer Robert Wiremu’s “reimagining” of sequences from Mozart’s final work, his “Requiem”, a profoundly engaging and deeply moving experience. It was thus on so many levels, though naturally the presentation exerted its fullest and deepest effect with all things considered – the atmosphere of the venue (the beautiful St.Mary of the Angels Church in Wellington), the cultural merging of ritualistic procedures, European and Maori, the idea of a “requiem” in the presence of karanga (call), kaupapa (matter for discussion) and poroporoaki (leave-taking) relating to and delivered by the composer in relation to  his subject matter, the use of both specific and “re-presented” parts of the Mozart work, both the overall and specific parts of the presentation’s “narrative”, the technical prowess of the performers, the beauty of their singing and playing, and, of course the skills and complete authority of Music Director Karen Grylls. All of these things interacted to present a work whose range and scope was breathtaking, both when experienced in situ and in subsequent resonant reflection”…

Read the full review here! 

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 Amplify Collective makes commissioning new work possible and enables us to create meaningful opportunities for established and emerging composers.

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