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Helen Fisher  

Nga Puke Songs

Duration: 03' 00" Year: 1990
for solo alto and acoustic guitar

  • Programme Note

    Na te Aroha and Taku Hoa Aroha were two love songs commissioned for a play called Nga Puke (The Hills) by Dunedin playwright, John Broughton. This play was performed at the Depot Theatre, Wellington, during the International Festival of the Arts, March 1990.

    Nga Puke is a love story between a Maori soldier of the 28th Maori Battalion, Waru Thompson, and a Pakeha nurse, Angie. The setting is both the rural landscape of Porangahau, Hawkes Bay, and then a military hospital in Crete during World War 2. The first song, Nga te Aroha is about Waru and Angie’s exchange of gifts (greenstone and a painting of Nga Puke). The second song, Taku Hoa Aroha, is Angie’s love song for Waru, as he lies wounded in a Crete hospital.

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Helen Fisher  

Nga Tapuwae o Kupe (The Footprints of Kupe)

Duration: 20' 00" Year: 1992
a bicultural work for school choir, instruments and dance

  • Instrumentation
    choir, percussion, Rarotongan drums, guitars (students), Taonga Puoro (koauau), piano, clarinet in B flat, alto saxophone, horn in F, flute, guitar (advanced performer)
  • Programme Note

    Nga Tapuwae o Kupe is a music drama directed by Rangimoana Taylor. It is based on the story of Kupe’s journey from Hawaiki to Aotearoa and his discovery of various landmarks around Whanganui-a-Tara / the Wellington region.

    While this work maintains a strong Maori theme, with karanga, haka and waiata, as well it weaves in other Pacific and European elements.

    For school choir, instrumentalists, dancers and kapa haka, this work was composed with the financial assistance of a composition grant from Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council, was first performed by 140 students from South Wellington Intermediate School in July 1992 for Artsplash, the Wellington Young People’s Festival.

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