Standing on Marine Parade before this concert, a calm green/blue sea, gulls and a dark-lined horizon, I wondered how on earth a wholeness could be created out of the great risotto of influences identified in the programme notes. From sea serpents, whales, Mother Theresa, Māori, Finnish, Indonesian cultures, waka made of human bones, and so much more.
Seated in a full-to-busting MTG, I was carried along in the story by the grand expansive, though strangely intimate, backdrop videos of the oceans. The horizon calling the audience out onto the glimmering sea surface, while being bathed in the great variety of sound created by the human voice.
In 2020 we welcome Louise as our Manager, and the new Manager of the NZ Youth Choir, to the Choirs Aotearoa NZ whānau.
Louise has over 10 years working in Arts Management in a variety of fields. She gained a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Studies from Otago University before beginning her career as Stage Manager at the Fortune Theatre in Dunedin.
Moving to the UK in 2012 expanded her career with production and management roles in opera, dance, television and film.
Returning to NZ in 2016, Louise worked in production management for the animated TV series Thunderbirds Are Go!, and most recently was working with the Royal New Zealand Ballet as Operations Manager.
The coming together of the NZSO National Youth Orchestra and the New Zealand Youth Choir was a just celebration of our country’s finest young musicians – a fitting culmination of a century’s nurturing, marking the orchestra’s 60th anniversary and the choir’s 40th.
New Zealand’s premier national chamber choir, Voices New Zealand, performs a stunning musical reminder of the beauty and importance of our oceans. Taonga Moana is born from the desire to talk and sing about topics that are acutely relevant to people at present. The current state of our oceans is a highly-charged topic that presents an opportunity to connect concerned people with the choral art-form.
Choral singing for many is seen as a static event that takes place in churches and sacred spaces, but Taonga Moana aims to blast that perception out of the water with an immersive theatrical experience – a musical story fusing atmospheric visuals from the oceans with live sounds from the ensemble to bring audiences a mesmerizing, exhilarating and thought-provoking experience.
One of the driving forces behind the project is internationally-renowned New Zealand choral conductor Karen Grylls. “One thing we learned early on in the project was the oceans, and their issues, are all connected.” She met with ocean experts and campaigners to really understand the central issues that our oceans face. Issues such as temperature change, the impact on global food chains, the reduction in biodiversity and how pollution and plastics wash into rivers, entering oceans and ultimately affecting what ends up on our plates. “I developed a real sense of what happens in the Atlantic is connected to what happens in the Southern Ocean, which impacts on the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. This meant that our music had to show the interconnection of all oceans.”
Grylls set out to source a global mix of musical creatives to tell the story and collaborate with prominent New Zealand theatre and opera director Sara Brodie . The result sees works from composers in Latvia, Indonesia, Canada, Finland and the U.S. come together in a programme that highlights that connectivity of our waters. The resulting story follows the flight of the kuaka – the godwits – and their hero, the ancient Maori navigator Ui-Te- Rangiora’s, from the freezing arctic through the rough Atlantic, the burning Indian and epic Pacific oceans to the sanctuary of Antarctica.
Nearly half of the music has been commissioned, or rewritten by the composers specifically for this project. Grylls says “it wasn’t hard to find musicians who wanted to lend their voice to this important topic.”
But the artistic voice about our neighbouring white continent, the Antarctic, was determined to be found in Aotearoa. “And we did” said Grylls, “in Warren Maxwell.”
Maxwell is the driving force behind psychedelic blues quartet Little Bushman and a founding member of Trinity Roots. A musical giant in Aotearoa, Maxwell was one of the five inaugural recipients of an Arts Foundation New Generation Award in 2006, and became a perfect fit as he had spent time on the ice as an artist-in-residence in 2016. “This was a chance for Warren to express his life-changing experience into a creative project, and for us to connect his composition prowess with choral music – something he’d never done before” Grylls says. With that, Maxwell’s first choral composition, Te Tai Uka a Pia (The Tides of Icy Shards), was created and has become his way of sharing his emotional response to Antarctica with the world – a place which he has decsibed as “gobsmackingly beautiful… it just left me breathless!” Maxwell was so moved by the project he ended up writing a second piece which will see its world premiere on this tour. Hind Mahaasaagar is about the Indian Ocean and incorporates Hindi verse with Tibetan throat singing – a testament to the varied musical styles Maxwell is known for.
It’s clear the project has emotionally moved Grylls. “I am very honoured and proud to be conducting Taonga Moana with Voices NZ. We are lending our voices to a relevant and contemporary issue that demands our attention and action at every level. I invite and challenge audiences to be part of this journey.” Grylls is joined for the first time by director Sara Brodie, whose works include Auckland Theatre Company’s ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime’ and New Zealand Opera’s ‘Hohēpa’. It’s a topic close to Brodie’s heart, and creating a narrative framework for Taonga Moana has been “an epic journey drawing on the skills of wonderful collaborators who figuratively, and in some cases, literally plumb the depths.” “We have drawn on current oceanic research, religions, mythologies, and historical figures of old to craft a story across the world’s oceans” she adds. “It is not intended to be a lesson, rather a musical reflection of the power we possess to protect or destroy.”
Taonga Moana is an exciting event for anybody who cares about our planet, loves exquisite music and appreciates human creativity – the explorers, the seafarers, the beach dwellers, the thinkers, the environmentalists.
ENDS
PROGRAMME
DAVID HAMILTON Karakia Of The Stars
JAMES GORDON Frobisher Bay
JAAKKO MÄNTYJÄRVI The Seafarer
JEFF ENNS The Sorrow Song Of Whales
MOZART Dies Irae/Lacrimosa
WARREN MAXWELL Hind Mahaasaagar
KEN STEVEN Henkatan Jiwa
ERIKS ESENVALDS A Drop In The Ocean
MASON BATES Observer In The Magellanic Cloud
WARREN MAXWELL Te Tai Uka a Pia
ARTIST INFO
Composers include David Hamilton (New Zealand), James Gordon (Canada), Jaakko
Mäntyjärvi (Finland), Jeff Enns (Canada), Warren Maxwell (New Zealand), Ken Steven
(Indonesia), Eriks Esenvalds (Latvia) and Mason Bates (United States)
Creative Team includes Dr Karen Grylls (Music Director/Conductor), Sara Brodie
(Director/Storyboard), Briar Grace-Smith (Script Development) and Tim and Mic Gruchy
(Audio Visuals)
CONCERT INFORMATION
Running Time: 70 minutes with no interval
WHERE & WHEN
INVERCARGILL | 4 October at 7.30pm
DUNEDIN | 5 October at 7.30pm
CHRISTCHURCH | 6 October at 5.00pm
HAMILTON | 11 October at 7.30pm
NEW PLYMOUTH | 12 October at 7.30pm
PALMERSTON NORTH | 13 October at 5.00pm
NAPIER* | 18 October at 7.30pm
NELSON* | 19 October at 7.30pm
GISBORNE* | 20 October at 7.00pm – tickets here
Tickets from chambermusic.co.nz/taongamoana or voicesfortheoceans.nz
* Features as part of the Nelson, Hawke’s Bay and Te Tairawhiti Arts Festivals.
Photo by Aja Lethaby
The new members, who come from as far north as Whangarei and south to Dunedin, will gather together for the first time these school holidays in Wellington. The first rehearsal course will feature a very special visit on Thursday from the choir’s patron, her Excellency the Right Honourable Dame Patsy Reddy, who will enjoy morning tea with the students, as well as experiencing their talents in action.
The national choir for 13 to 18 year olds, NZSSC gathers the country’s finest young voices and offers them a once in a lifetime opportunity, a two-year membership to learn from top New Zealand vocal teachers and consultants. Her Excellency will visit the choir on Day 3 of its week-long course in Wellington, Thursday 20th April. NZSSC Executive Officer, Anna Bowron says, “The students are all very excited. It is fantastic to have the Governor General’s commitment as our Patron. That relationship clearly demonstrates our national status and significance to our members”.
NZSSC Music Director Andrew Withington is delighted there is a great mix of students in the new choir, and impressed that some schools have achieved multiple memberships, testament to their strong music departments perhaps. Dilworth College in Auckland has seven boys in the choir and Auckland Diocesan five. Palmerston North Boys High School also has five members—while this musically-strong school has often had NZSSC members, five is a record! There are also seven members from Dunedin, also unusually high, likely due to the profile NZSSC received last year when performing at The Big Sing finale hosted by the southern city. It’s rare for Year 9 students to make it into NZSSC, but thirteen year Izzie Reid from Hamilton is an exception. Last year Izzie won her category in the NZ ARIA Competition in 2016.
There will no doubt be a lot of nerves leading up to the first course in Wellington. Anna Bowron says that the first rehearsal course, while challenging both socially and musically, is very important. “The first course sets the tone – the students very quickly understand how hard they have to work, how much progress they can make and how easily they bond and make new friends. They will end the week exhausted but already excited for the next course”. The course will culminate with an open rehearsal at Wellington Girls College on Sunday 23 April.
Read the Stuff article
Pictured above: NZSSC members Greta Healy-Melhuish and Ren-C Tamayo with Her Excellency. Photo: Mark Tantrum
For more information or images, contact:
Rachel Healy, PUBLICIST
T: 0275277732 E: rachel@rachelhealy.co.nz
1. Coronation St or Eastenders?
Coronation St. I am a fan! I like Rita the matriarch. Roy is loyal.
2. Facebook or Instagram?
Facebook—a great way to keep in touch.
3. What’s on your playlist?
Apart from choral music, I love music theatre. My favourite is The Sound of Music.
4. Favourite Composer?
Mendelssohn.
5. Always wanted to sing?
Yes, apparently at two years old I would sing to people from atop of the dining room table.
6. Decision to take up the baton?
I was eight. After watching my teacher conduct the school musical, I started opening picture books and conducting the stories.
7. Another childhood memory…
I was also eight when I noticed the television was dusty, so I brought in the garden hose and gave it a good clean. Mum was livid!
8. Food you crave but shouldn’t…
Ice-cream, in pairs. I buy two big bikkie ice-creams at once. Chocolate buttons and jelly babies. White chocolate and macadamia nut biscuits from Subway.
9. Career highlight (so far)?
So many, but NZSSC Artistic Director is up there.
10. Advice to teenage self?
Be true to yourself.
1. How did you first hear about NZSSC?
My first encounter was at the 2010 Big Sing Finale. I was in the audience with my school choir. The concert sounded so incredible that I still have a vivid memory of it. It had a massive impact on me and I set a goal to be part of the next NZSSC cycle.
2. What are the highlights from your time in NZSSC?
To be perfectly honest, NZSSC was life-changing for me. Without it, I would not have made the decision to pursue a professional singing career and be where I am now.
I definitely value the friends I made, friends who had the same passion as me—to sing!. Often we are the odd ones at school, but in NZSSC, everyone is just as odd as you! I met one of my closest friends, Tom Kitchen, in the choir. The friends you make in NZSSC are the ones you hang on to for the rest of your life. There is a very special bond within the choral community.
During my time in NZSSC, we toured to South Africa. One of the places we stayed was a safari park in Johannesburg. One morning we woke up for breakfast but couldn’t get out of our little hut. There was a giraffe sitting in front of our door. Another memory is pictured below …
3. You are currently performing in NZ Opera’s Carmen…
I have been involved with NZ Opera for a few years now. I was very fortunate to make my operatic debut in the 2014 production of La Boheme in Christchurch. Fast forward three years, I am now based in Auckland and am part of the Freemason NZ Opera Chorus.
I have also been part of the chorus for The Bone Feeder, La Cenerentola, Tosca, Nixon in China, Othello and the Magic Flute.
4. Very soon you will be beginning the Dame Malvina Major Opera Studies programme. One of only six to be accepted …
It is an honour to be selected for the programme. It’s a rare opportunity to work solely on ‘recitative’ – a style of delivery used in opera. It’s delivering lines in a foreign language by singing them in rhythm. Recitative is often challenging if one does not speak the language. Recitative is what moves the story line in an opera, so getting it right and delivering the details is incredibly important.
One of the other singers in the programme is fellow NZSSC member, Katherine McIndoe, who was choir leader during my time. The programme will be invaluable for all six of us before we embark on our studies overseas in the next year or so.
5. Where would you like to be five to ten years?
Ultimately, the goal is still to sing professionally. Currently, I am touring around cities but it would be nice to be able to settle down a little while also pursuing a singing career.
6. Any advice for young singers just starting out?
Be clear of your own definition of success. Everyone is different, so make it your own. You will receive a lot of advice, some amazing, some not so amazing . It is up to you to digest the information and take on what applies to you. You cannot please everyone. As one of my colleagues said to me recently, just be the best version of yourself, and that is more than enough.
The concert is a rare opportunity to see two internationally-acclaimed youth choirs performing together. It will feature the world premiere of a commission from internationally acclaimed Latvian composer, Eriks Esenvalds, performed by both choirs.
The New Zealand Secondary Students Choir is our national choir for 13 to 18 year olds. It gathers the country’s finest young voices from all over the country and offers them a once in a lifetime opportunity—a two-year membership to learn from top New Zealand vocal teachers and consultants. The NZ Youth Choir features 51 of our best singers, aged 18-25 years.
There are 24 Auckland teenagers in the 2017/18 New Zealand Secondary Students Choir, with a record seven from Dilworth School and five from neighbouring Auckland Diocesan School. Takapuna Grammar, St Mary’s College, Epsom Girls Grammar School, St Cuthbert’s College, St Kentigern College, Kings College, Westlake Girls and Kristin School are also represented in the choir.
During their six days in Auckland, NZSSC students will be under the baton of their Artistic Director Andrew Withington. They’ll also have the incredible opportunity to work with top international composers and conductors, including American Andre Thomas and Latvian Eriks Esenvalds, as part of the programme for the New Zealand Choral Federation’s Choral Connect. Choral Connect is a conference for choral conductors, composers and singers.
NZSSC Executive Officer Anna Bowron says, “The visit to Auckland is only the second full rehearsal course for the 2017-2018 choir, but the students are already really starting to gel as a choir. The six days together will allow them to perfect their repertoire for performance. And of course, our first performance will be a very exciting one indeed.”
The 2017/2018 choir met for the first time in April in Wellington, under the gaze of its patron, Her Excellency The Right Honourable Dame Patsy Reddy, Governor-General of New Zealand, who visited the rehearsals (Stuff article here).
New Zealand Secondary Students in Concert with NZ Youth Choir
7-9pm, Wed 12th July. Holy Trinity Church, 446 Parnell Rd, Parnell. Door sales ONLY.
Tickets: $45 (waged), $35 (unwaged) and $20 (students/scholars) www.nzsschoir.com/events
For more information or images, contact: Rachel Healy, PUBLICIST. 0275277732, rachel@rachelhealy.co.nz
How did the July course go?
Greta Healy-Melhuish (Wellington East Girls College): The highlight was seeing the choir gel before my eyes. People who barely knew each other at the Wellington course formed close friendships, and the banter was strong! And a special mention must go to Carole’s impeccable morning teas.
Ren-C Tamayo (St Pats College): It was amazing to have a week of singing! It provided a kind of retreat from everyday life, which was awesome.
Any low points?
Greta: The fatigue that goes hand-in-hand with long days and the immense levels of excitement.
What did you learn at the course?
Ren-C: How important it is for a choir to really enjoy singing.
Greta: That if my voice is tired, as much as I love to belt it out with my alto sisters, sometimes I need to tone it down in rehearsals. It’s not worth the recovery.
Does the ‘new’ choir still feel new?
Greta: No …it wasn’t long into the July course before the air was alive with beatboxing, instrument-playing and K-Pop.
Ren-C: It felt like we’d known each other a lot longer than three months… kind of like a second home.
You got an extra two days in Auckland due to your flight being cancelled…
Ren-C: There were definitely ups and downs! But we were well compensated with two nights at the Crowne Plaza, buffet breakfasts, Carl’s Jr, belting out Salve Regina in a church, and just getting to be tourists in Auckland.
Favourite morning tea …
Greta: That’s a pretty mean question. All of Carole’s morning teas are my favourite. But I especially like it when there are multiple types of hummus.
Favourite moments with Brent (NZSSC Assistant Director) or Andrew (Artistic Director) …
Ren-C: When Brent plays the bongos
Greta: When Andrew says, “Good for you!”
Tell us about working with internationally-acclaimed Latvian composer, Eriks Esenvalds?
Ren-C: He was such an eloquent speaker, and so down to earth. He really engaged us with the piece. He made me realise how different it is to sing a song in the way that the composer actually intended it to sound.
Greta: I think everyone was a bit star-struck. He had so much wisdom to share. It was such a privilege to have the composer there when we were performing the piece.
How about American guest conductor, André Thomas?
Ren-C: He was humble, relaxed and funny! He lifted the atmosphere of both choirs (NZSSC was performing in Auckland with the NZ Youth Choir). I learned how much we take conductors for granted.
Greta: What a man! He had so much energy and passion. I certainly learnt a lot about the nuances of conducting, which I didn’t even know existed.
Did these two men have different approach to what you are used to?
Ren-C: Yes definitely, to see them work their magic was incredible.
Andrew has recently completed his PhD in Choral Pedagogy. What does this mean to you and the choir?
Greta: Andrew’s work towards his PhD has been closely linked with the choir for many years now. It’s certainly introduced a lot of young singers to the universe of ‘just tuning’—an invaluable asset.
Ren-C: During the first course, when Andrew talked about his PhD in depth, I was in awe. I felt ‘just tuning’ already when I sang with others, but I never really knew what it was. So to see it researched and presented at such a high calibre was impressive. It will not only benefit NZSSC, but other choirs around the world.
What sort of music do you listen to at home?
Ren-C: A lot of RnB and Jazz, but I fluctuate—from Barbershop, Classic Rock, Pop, Rap, Alternative and Funk!
Greta: A range of genres. I’ll listen to nearly anything. Some favourites are James Blake and Sufjan Stevens though.
What’s NZSSC given you so far?
Greta: Because I’m in my third year with the choir, I do look back and realise how lucky I am to have had this opportunity. I can’t imagine my life without NZSSC. Where I would be if Brent (Stewart) hadn’t told me to audition when I was 14? NZSSC has given me so many skills, not just around my singing, but it’s broadened my social sphere.
Plans for next year?
Ren-C: Biomedical Sciences in Auckland, or Health Science First Year in Otago. I’m in pursuit of a future in medicine. I hope music remains a part of my life, I can’t imagine a life without it!
Greta: I’m abandoning Wellington for the bright lights of Auckland to study Law and a BA in film and art history. But anything could happen! I won’t be studying music, but it will still be a huge part of my life, and I’m hoping to join an Auckland choir.
