Making waves

“A love song to the oceans” is how choral conductor Karen Grylls describes the concert Taonga Moana. When the superb singers of Voices New Zealand toured the thought-provoking production nationally under her direction, this heart-breakingly beautiful programme was an artistic highlight of the season.

Choral conductor Karen Grylls

Director of Voices New Zealand

Moved by the precarious state of the world’s waters, Grylls set out to learn more from ocean experts and campaigners. She also worked with composers from Latvia, Finland, Canada, Indonesia, America and New Zealand to develop Taonga Moana. “The oceans and their issues are all connected,” she says. Narration and singing combine to lament the shared problems of temperature change, biodiversity reduction and pollution.  

Collaborating with director Sara Brodie, Grylls put together an imaginative narrative following the migratory journey of the kuaka (godwits) and the ancient Māori navigator Ui-Te- Rangiora from freezing Arctic waters through the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans to the sanctuary of Aotearoa.

Many of the works that give voice to the journey were specially composed for the project.  Taonga Moana begins with  New Zealander David Hamilton’s Karakia of the Stars and combines styles as diverse as the Canadian folk song Frobisher Bay by James Gordon, Mozart’s poignant Lacrimosa and the futuristic Observer in the Magellanic Cloud by American hotshot composer and DJ Mason Bates.

Taonga Moana’s story doesn’t end in Aotearoa’s temperate waters. The kuaka rest here but Ui-Te-Rangiora rides on to the Antarctic with Tohorā, the whale. The moving programme is completed by the first choral composition from composer Warren Maxwell. The founding member of the bands TrinityRoots and Little Bushman travelled to the frozen continent in 2016 as part of Antarctica NZ’s artist community outreach programme.

Composer Warren Maxwell

Photo credit: Mark Coote

Maxwell (Ngāi Tūhoe, Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāi Te Rangi) was deeply affected by his Antarctic visit. The magical sounds of Te Tai Uka a Pia (The Tides of Icy Shards) are his musical response. His second choral work, incorporating Hindi verse with Tibetan throat singing, Hind Mahaasaagar, was written soon after, and this tribute to the Indian Ocean is also part of Taonga Moana. 

Taonga Moana Voices New Zealand chamber choir (conductor Karen Grylls, theatre director Sara Brodie) Broadcast by RNZ Concert on 6 August, 2022.

This article was first published in the NZ Listener February 2021