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Hirini Melbourne  

E Taku Kuru Pounamu

Duration: 03' 00" Year: 2003
For female voice and taonga puoro

Aroha Yates-Smith   Hirini Melbourne  

Hinemokemoke

Duration: 05' 00" Year: 2003
for female voice and taonga puoro

Hirini Melbourne  

Hineruhi

Duration: 01' 00" Year: 2003
For female voice and taonga puoro

Gillian Whitehead  

Hinetekakara

 Year: 2004
for voice, taonga puoro, flute, alto flute, and bassoon

  • Instrumentation
    Taonga puoro include: putatara, putorino matai (wheke), pumotomoto, oriori, pupuharakeke (flax snail), pu kaea, nguru rakau maire
  • Programme Note

    Hinetekakara is the ancestress of Aroha Yates-Smith, the kaikaranga (singer) who provided the idea and the text of this piece. Hinetekakara lived on the shores of Lake Rotorua with Ihenga, her husband or father, an eponymous ancestor of the Te Arawa people, when the land was still being settled after the arrival of the Te Arawa canoe from central Polynesia.

    The four cadenzas, for bassoon, alto flute, flute, cello and bassoon, and bassoon link improvised sections, in which all the instruments participate. The singer initially invokes, accompanied by putatara (conch shell trumpet), the spirit of Hinetekakara, then addresses rituals following the death of her future father-in-law (with putorino), and then the birth of her son (with pumotomoto, an instrument used to assist at child-birth). A voiceless improvisation on pupu harakeke (flax snail), an instrument presaging danger, is followed by Ihenga’s anguished lament as he finds the murdered body of Hinetekakara by the lake, by the place named for her, Ohinemutu, meaning the end of the woman. Finally, she is farewelled as her spirit returns to the afterworld.

  • Availability

Gillian Whitehead  

Hinetekakara

Duration: 16' 00" Year: 2004
for voice, taonga puoro, and bassoon

  • Instrumentation
    Voice used for waiata; Taonga puoro includes: Putatara, Putorino Matai, Pumotomoto, Pupuharakeke, Pu Kaea, and Nguru Rakau Maire
  • Programme Note

    Hinetekakara is the ancestress of Aroha Yates-Smith, the kaikaranga (singer) who provided the idea and the text of this piece. Hinetekakara lived on the shores of Lake Rotorua with Ihenga, her husband or father, an eponymous ancestor of the Te Arawa people, when the land was still being settled after the arrival of the Te Arawa canoe from central Polynesia. The four cadenzas, for bassoon, alto flute, flute, cello and bassoon, and bassoon link improvised sections, in which all the instruments participate. The singer initially invokes, accompanied by putatara (conch shell trumpet), the spirit of Hinetekakara, then addresses rituals following the death of her future father-in-law (with putorino), and then the birth of her son (with pumotomoto, an instrument used to assist at child-birth). A voiceless improvisation on pupu harakeke (flax snail), an instrument presaging danger, is followed by Ihenga’s anguished lament as he finds the murdered body of Hinetekakara by the lake, by the place named for her, Ohinemutu, meaning the end of the woman. Finally, she is farewelled as her spirit returns to the afterworld.

  • Availability

Gillian Whitehead  

Naumai e te ao marama

 Year: 2004
For voice and koauau (Taonga Puoro)

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.

  • Availability

Hirini Melbourne  

Ororuarangi

Duration: 04' 00"
For taonga puoro and male voice

Hirini Melbourne  

Porotiti

Duration: 01' 00"
for taonga puoro and male voice

Helen Fisher  

Pounamu

Duration: 07' 00" Year: 1989, r. 1997
for solo flute, SSAATB choir