Suite Aotearoa: magic woven from our natural world

New Zealand pianist Sharon Joy Vogan conceived the ambitious Suite Aotearoa project while New Zealand was locked down during the COVID pandemic. She secured funding to commission ten new works from New Zealand composers, five women and five men, five of the works for piano solo and five in which taonga pūoro (Māori traditional instruments) join the piano.

Pianist Sharon Joy Vogan

“…conceived, commissioned and performed the works of Suite Aotearoa.”

Horomona Horo (Ngāpuhi, Taranaki, Ngāti Porou), specialist in performance on taonga pūoro, collaborated with those five composers. His own solo works for taonga pūoro open and close the new collection and the album ends with an extended piano work from 2005, the lovely lullaby Oriori by David Hamilton.

Suite Aotearoa opens with the deep, resonant sound of the hue puruhau, the large gourd, in Horo’s solo work, Aranga (Arise). The repeated sounds seem like a signal of renewal. Horo is one of the artists continuing the renaissance of taonga pūoro begun by his mentors, Dr Hirini Melbourne, Dr Richard Nunns and Hinewirangi Kohu-Morgan.

Part of that rebirth has seen collaboration between taonga pūoro artists, Pākeha classical musicians and western-trained composers, which began with Gillian Karawe Whitehead's compositions with the late Nunns. The piano, a fixture in many colonial homes in New Zealand in the 19th century, has not so far played a major role in the new collaborative tradition, but the beautiful, contemplative works on this new album demonstrate an exciting range of sonic possibilities.

Taonga pūoro musician and composer Horomona Horo

“…continuing the renaissance of traditional Māori instruments begun by his mentors.”

The clear, jewel-like tone of the pahū pounamu (greenstone gong) opens and closes Leonie Holmes' atmospheric Te Pūtahitanga - Convergence. It's a conversation between cultures, between piano and taonga pūoro, symbolic of the kaupapa of the album. Horo introduces us to a wide variety of instruments, the tapped pākuru, held in and amplified by the mouth, flute-like carved wooden pūmotomo, booming gourd hue puruhau, whirling porotiti and the short flute, koauau. The communicative gestures of the piano part respond to the taonga pūoro, which have an almost human quality at times. Splendidly played and recorded, it's a very effective piece and, like the whole album, needs a live performance soon.

Next comes a work for piano solo, the very beautiful Sumner Tides by Christchurch-born Salina Fisher. It begins with thoughtful exploration of piano timbres but quickly gains momentum with little wave-like flourishes resembling the tidal ebb and flow. Fisher acknowledges the influence of Debussy, that musical master of the ocean.

Michael Williams' work Te Puna Kahurangi was also inspired by water, the vivid colours of the Blue Spring at Putaruru in the Waikato. The piano is joined by pūtōrino, regarded by Nunns as principal of all taonga pūoro. Shaped like the cocoon of the bag moth, and mythological home of the goddess Hineraukatauri, it has a flute (or female) voice and a trumpet (or male) voice.

Pūtōrino

“…regarded by the late Richard Nunns as the principal of all taonga pūoro.”

Williams has created a lovely "watery" piano part, tinkling and cascading like spring waters. Horo’s phrases from the different voices of the pūtōrino evoke an ancient presence lamenting behind the watery surface. Piano and taonga pūoro again prove to be responsive musical partners.
Like the works by Fisher and William, most of the music on the album, with or without taonga pūoro, responds to some aspect of Aotearoa's natural world or landscape. The night sky above Tekapo, the mineral springs of the Coromandel Peninsula, a special Otago coastline setting and Rakiura (Stewart Island) have inspired four of the album’s works for piano solo.

John Psathas wrote Jupiter and Venus after seeing what is known as a celestial “kiss”, the two planets appearing, magically, to almost touch in the dark sky. It’s a charming, minimalist piece about love, expressing the oscillating energies of a relationship. Vogan’s rippling legato playing draws out the gentle beauty of the work.

Wera, a word in te reo Māori associated with heat and passion, is the title of Yvette Audain’s piano piece.  Shifting dynamic levels grow in intensity, the pitch range widening to reflect the springs of Hot Water Beach and other hot springs in a well-constructed and effective work.  

Kenneth Young’s Te Ngaru refers to a location near Aramoana on the Otago Peninsula with strong personal associations – his Scottish great-grandfather sailed into Te Ngaru in 1862 to begin a new life. The piano writing is nicely idiomatic in the flowing, contemplative piece, its melodic texture with soft chords growing into greater complexity with moments of drama.

The long summer sunsets of Stewart Island inspired Anthony Ritchie to compose Rakiura Lights. It’s melodious and romantic and Vogan relaxes beautifully into the expansive piano writing. There’s also delightful birdsong, high single notes and tiny gestures dropping into silence or chirping over chorale-like textures.

For Kapariera: Even the gods are confused by Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal (Marutūahu, Ngāti Raukawa and Ngā Puhi), Vogan handed over the keyboard to pianist Thomas Nikora to ensure the piece was both created and performed by Māori.

A response to the devastation of Cyclone Gabrielle and the effects of climate change, the compelling work, composed in collaboration with Horo, includes intense, agitated chanting of a powerful text in te reo created by Royal. A single piano line morphs into flowing gestures, joined by trumpet-like pukaea, obsidian koauau and pūtōrino made from toroa/albatross bone, fluting above a low piano oscillation. The dramatic piece finally fades, high and ethereal, into silence.

A feature of collaborative works with taonga pūoro is often a slow, contemplative approach,  the traditional instruments improvisatory in performance. In Helen Bowater’s Pepetuna she allows time for a conversation between piano and the voices of pūtōrino to unfold. The Puriri or ‘ghost’ moth is sometimes considered by Māori an ancestral spiritual messenger and this music communicates the moonlit flight of moths. Horo plays the ghostly whirling purerehua and sings quietly into the piano, picking up string resonances. The final drift into silence reflects, the composer tell us, “the transience of living things”.

Composer Helen Bowater (left) with pianist Sharon Vogan (centre) and Horomona Horo, during the recording session for Pepetuna.

Marama is the Māori word for moon, maramataka the lunar calendar. Both words are sung and chanted in Eve de Castro-Robinson’s A single note of rock, the title from a poem by Denys Trussell, ‘Moon and Hymn over Hauraki’. Like Holmes’ work, the piece, created with Horo and dedicated to composer Martin Lodge, begins and ends with the striking of pahū pounamu and explores a range of taonga pūoro timbres, tapping of pākuru, rubbing of tumutumu and vocal sounds woven with piano resonances. Vogan’s beautiful piano playing is finely judged throughout, simple and luminous with occasional splashing gestures.

Composer Douglas Lilburn said, of Aotearoa’s natural environment, “there are some special aspects of it that seem to me important to our feeling for music, qualities of colour and line and distance, and the clarity of the light that plays over us.” Suite Aotearoa, a wonderful realisation of Vogan’s vision, is also vindication of Lilburn’s belief in a musical tradition of our own. Beautifully played and recorded, Vogan, Horo and Atoll producer Wayne Laird have created, in the words of one of the twelve composers, “a kind of magic”.

Suite Aotearoa Sharon Joy Vogan (piano), Horomona Horo (taonga pūoro) (Atoll) More information and purchase link here

You can read a personal tribute to the late Richard Nunns here

If you’d like to learn more about taonga pūoro, I recommend Te Ara Puoro: a journey into the world of Māori music by Richard Nunns with Allan Thomas (2014) and Taonga Pūoro Singing Treasures: The musical instruments of the Māori by Brian Flintoff (2004), both books with accompanying CDs, and published by Craig Potton Publishing.