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Contributor


Willow Macky

Composer, Performer

Born: 1921 Died: 2006

Biography

Willow Macky was one of New Zealand's great, but largely unheralded composers of New Zealand songs. It would be unusual to have attended an end of year school assembly in New Zealand and not have sung her work Te Harinui - A New Zealand Carol. Of her prodigious output of over 113 songs and 92 lyrics, Willow wrote mostly folk songs, even a folk opera called The Maori Flute. She also wrote over 300 poems.

Willow was a great exponent of writing about local experiences, history, people and places, including Maori legend and tradition. In fact the reason she started writing songs was because while she had collected many folksongs from around the world, she couldn't find any about Auckland. This led to Waitemata Harbour, and later Tamaki Moonlight. Singing about her own city seems to have received a mixed reaction - in an interview in 1994 she remembered people laughing when she sang the line "I love to go down to old Mission Bay" in Tamaki Moonlight because of the strangeness of hearing a local place mentioned in a ballad.

One of Willow's 'breaks' was meeting Swedish-American balladeer William Clauson on his visit to New Zealand in 1959. He recorded five of Willow's songs, including one she wrote specially, set to a melody he particularly liked - it was a tradition for each country he visited to supply different words to the same tune. That song was The Bishop and the Tohunga.

The great bass singer Inia Te Wiata praised Willow's songs as "the only New Zealand composer besides Alfred Hill who can capture the authentic Maori atmosphere." Willow's career spans the time when issues of cultural representation and sensitivity were coming to the fore. By 1990 she had revised her 1964 composition Waitangi Anthem, because she found "as time went on I began to realise that the words of the anthem did not adequately reflect, in these changing times, the feelings of the Maori community about the Treaty." Willow's life and work are a valuable part of the story of New Zealand music. As Willow observed many years ago "we have something to sing about - a land as beautiful, interesting and worthy as any other ... we wish to pay [New Zealand] a tribute which is long overdue and give pleasure to our people and all others who wish to hear."

Willow passed away on 9 December, 2006, aged 85.


Composed (160)

A New Zealand Christmas

for voice and guitar


A Wet Night in Greymouth

for voice and guitar


A Wet Night in Greymouth

for voice and piano, 4m


Abel Tasman

for voice and piano, 3m


Abel Tasman

for voice, piccolo, piano and drum, 4m


Adieu Tahiti (Good Bye Tahiti)

for voice and guitar


American Gal - A Ballad

for solo voice


Apple-Picking Time

for voice and guitar with optional piano introduction


Apple-Picking Time

for voice and piano


Arrowtown

for voice and guitar


Arrowtown

for voice and piano


At Christmas Time

for voice, piano and optional guitar


Be Swift, O Sun

for voice and guitar


Be Swift, O Sun

for voice and piano


Better Than War!

for voice and guitar


Bird Woman

for voice and guitar


Blue and Golden, Red and Green

for voice and guitar


Bomber, Bomber

for vocal duo and guitar


Bonnie, Braw Dunedin

for voice, 2m


Cathedral City

for choir and piano, 3m


Christ is Risen!

for solo voice


Freddie Ambrose

for voice and guitar


Gentle Annie

for voice and guitar


God Bless You Boy

for voice and piano


Heaven Come Down

for voice and piano


Hori and His Spanish Guitar

for voice and guitar


I Love to Go Fishing

for voice and piano with optional guitar, 3m


I Love to Go Fishing

for voice and optional guitar


I Remember Summer

for voice and flute


If He's Mine

for voice and guitar


It Has to be Love

for voice and guitar


It's Time to Come Alive

for solo voice


Jean Batten

for voice and guitar


Jean Batten

for voice and piano


John Randal

for voice


Just for A Little While

for voice and guitar


Kauri Scow

for voice and guitar


Korotangi (The Dove)

for voice and piano


Korotangi (The Dove)

for voice and guitar


Kupe

for voice and guitar, 4m


Kupe

for voice and piano


Land of the Fern

for two-part choir, clarinet and piano, 3m


Land of the Fern

for two-part choir


Listen to the Holy Spirit

for four-part choir


Listen to the Holy Spirit!

for unison choir


Manawatu

for voice and guitar, 4m


Maori Melody

for mixed voices with optional guitar


Maori Melody

for solo voice


Morepork

for voice and piano with optional guitar, 2m


Mountain Song

for voice and guitar


My Dally Land

for voice and guitar


My Very Own Blues

for solo voice


Not to Worry!

for solo voice


On the N.Z.R.

for voice and guitar


On the N.Z.R.

for voice and piano


On the Napier Marine Parade

for voice and piano with optional guitar


Peace to the World

for SAB choir and organ, 2m


Peace to the World

for voice and piano, 2m


Peace to the World

for voice and piano


Peace to the World

for four-part choir


Peace to the World

for voice and guitar


Peace to the World

for piano, choir or carillon


Pohutukawa Carol

for voice and guitar


Queenstown

for voice and guitar


Queenstown

for voice and piano


Rotorua Holiday

for voice and piano, 3m


Sail On, My Boat!

for voice and guitar


Saint of the Southern Seas

for two-part choir


See You In Auckland

for solo voice


See You In Auckland

for voice and piano


September's Child

for solo voice


Snowy Mountains

for voice and piano with optional guitar, 3m


Stepping Through the Hops

for voice and guitar


Summer Sands

for voice and piano with optional guitar


Sweet Singing Bells

for voice and piano with optional guitar


Sweet Singing Bells

for three part voices and bells


Sweet Singing Bells

for handbells


Tamaki Moonlight

for voice and piano with optional guitar


Te Harinui

for SATB choir with descant or solo voice


Te Harinui

for piano


Te Harinui

for organ


Te Harinui

for chamber octet


Te Harinui

for SATB choir and solo voice


Te Harinui

for SATB choir


Te Harinui

for two-part choir, 3m


Te Harinui

for SATB choir and guitar


Te Harinui

for unison voices with optional accompaniment


Te Harinui

for unison voices with optional accompaniment


Te Harinui

for orchestra


Te Harinui

arranged for brass band


Te Harinui (Not on a Snowy Night)

for solo soprano, SATB choir and piano


Thames - A Hundred Years Ago

for voice and piano, 3m


The ANZACS - A Song for Peace

for voice and piano with optional guitar


The Ballad of Captain Cook

for voice and guitar, 4m


The Ballad of Captain Cook

for voice and piano


The Ballad of Sir Edmund Hillary

for voice and piano with optional guitar, 3m


The Ballad of Sir Henry Hayes

for voice and guitar, 5m


The Ballad of St. Cuthbert

for voice and guitar


The Ballad of the Export Sheep

for voice and guitar


The Ballad of William White

for voice and guitar


The Bell-Birds

for voice and guitar


The Bishop and the Tohunga

for voice and guitar


The Dolphins

for voice and piano with optional guitar


The Dolphins

for voice and guitar


The Glory of the Kingdom

for solo voice


The Good Ship Kiwi

for voice and piano


The Good Ship Kiwi

for solo voice


The Green New Zealand Bush

for solo voice (or unison voices) and piano, 3m


The Green New Zealand Bush

for voice and piano with optional guitar


The Legend of Mokoia

for voice and guitar


The Little Mousie

for voice and guitar


The Man from Manawatu

for voice and piano


The Maori Flute

for bass voice, flute and string orchestra, 4m 30s


The Maori Flute

for voice and flute


The Milford Track

for voice and guitar, 2m


The Milford Track

adapted by J. F. Stevens for voice and guitar


The Milford Track

arranged by J. F. Stevens for voice and piano


The Morepork (The Ruru)

for voice and clarinet in A


The Pioneer's Daughter

for voice and piano with optional guitar


The Riro-Riro

for voice, clarinet and guitar


The Sea-Gulls

for voice and piano


The Shining Cuckoo

for flute, voice and piano


The Shinny Cuekoo

for voice and guitar


The Treaty Tree (Te Rakau o te Tiriti)

for voice and piano with optional guitar


The Tui

for solo voice


The Waipu Settlers

for voice and guitar


The Waipu Settlers

for voice and guitar


The Waipu Settlers

for voice and piano, 3m


The Wood-Pigeons

for SAB choir with optional guitar


The Words of John

for voice and guitar


There Grew a Tree in Israel

for vocal duo and piano


There Grew a Tree in Israel

for voice and guitar


There Grew a Tree in Israel

for two part choir and cymbal


There Rose a Star

for voice and piano


There Rose a Star - Peace Carol

for voice and piano


Up the Hill in the Cable Car

for voice and guitar


Up the Hill in the Cable Car

for voice and piano with optional guitar, 5m


Valhalla!

for voice and guitar


Waitangi Anthem

for solo voice (or unison voices) and piano, 2m


Waitemata Harbour

for two-part voices and piano with optional guitar, 2m


Waitomo Magic

for voice and piano, 2m


Walter Nash - Prime Minister

for trumpet, snare drum, voice and piano


We'll All Come to Zion

for voice and guitar


We're a Great Big City

for voice and guitar


Wedding Bells

for voice and guitar


Wedding Bells

for unison choir and piano


Welcome Song

for voice and guitar


What Do We Want With a Bomb?

for chorus and guitar


You Can't Beat the Irish

for voice and guitar, 3m



Arranged (2)

The Ballad of William White

for voice and guitar


The Bishop and the Tohunga

for voice and guitar