NEWS
NZ Song Book gets premiere workshop at Auckland Arts Festival in WAIATA MAI
The New Zealand Song Book will receive its first public outing at the 2024 Auckland Arts Festival, in the form of the interactive singing workshop: Waiata Mai The goal of the New Zealand Song Book is to encourage and enable people to have a go at singing iconic kiwi songs. No singing experience? No problem! With […]
The New Zealand Song Book will receive its first public outing at the 2024 Auckland Arts Festival, in the form of the interactive singing workshop: Waiata Mai
The goal of the New Zealand Song Book is to encourage and enable people to have a go at singing iconic kiwi songs. No singing experience? No problem! With tailored learning tracks for your voice part, and helpful singing tips from Dr. Morag Atchison, you can practice melody and harmony in the comfort of your own home! The four-part arrangements are perfect for you and your friends or whānau to have a go at harmony and choral singing! As the collection of songs builds, there will be a range of genre and difficulty levels for all singers to enjoy!
As an added bonus – we’ve teamed up with Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki Auckland Arts Festival 2024 and created Waiata Mai!
Waiata Mai will be an in-person workshop and concert, held in Aotea Square at the opening night of the festival. Singers of all ages and skill levels can come along to this event and learn a four part arrangement of iconic kiwi songs and waiata.Rehearsals have been planned across the city in locations across Auckland, allowing people to get prepped and primed to sing a selection of iconic waiata from Aotearoa. You can register for the event HERE. Anyone can join in – no previous singing experience is needed. Have fun, meet new people, connect with outstanding musical leaders, while creating history in the CBD of Tāmaki Makaurau.
We’re so looking forward to seeing our new project take off on such a public platform!
The Team:
Those who attend the rehearsals and concert for Waiata Mai will have the opportunity to learn from acclaimed conductors Fiona Wilson and Rowan Johnston, and sing along with some of NZ’s best singers!
Fiona Wilson has been Head of Music at Westlake Girls High School for ten years during which time she’s earned the school half a dozen gold medals at the highly-competitive Big Sing Finale – New Zealand’s national choral festival for secondary schools. Fiona is also a singer and is currently a soprano in Voices New Zealand, our premier national chamber choir. Fiona has toured with Voices to the United Kingdom, Spain, France and Germany and performed with internationally acclaimed artists Eric Whitaker, The Kings Singers and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, here and overseas. As well as Fiona’s work at Westlake Girls’, recent highlights include last year conducting competition pieces with Voices NZ and composers at CANZ Composers Workshop in Wellington and working with community choirs for the Northland region local community. In 2022, Fiona shadowed Karen Grylls as Chorus Master for Voices NZ in concert with Eric Whitacre and his award-winning work, The Secret Veil. In 2021, she was Chorus Master for Voices NZ in concert with the APO for ‘The Blue Planet’.
Fiona was also recently appointed as the Assistant Conductor at Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand.
Rowan Johnston is a freelance choral conductor and clinician who has recently relocated with his whānau from Auckland to Wellington. In 2023, he finished as Musical Director for the Auckland Youth Choir, Director of Choirs at Holy Trinity Cathedral Auckland and Musical Director of the internationally acclaimed school choir Choralation from Westlake Girls and Boys High Schools. Rowan is also an Associate Conductor for Voices NZ Chamber Choir and a National Choral Mentor for the New Zealand Choral Federation. Along with being recently appointed to the Aotearoa NZ Academy Choir co-Directorship, he also conducts the Wellington Youth Choir, Seraphim at Chilton St James School and the Scots College Chamber Choir. He is a regular guest conductor at the Gondwana National Choral School in Australia and is in much demand as a conductor, adjudicator and clinician nationally and internationally. Under his leadership, Choralation was placed 1st in the Mixed Choir category at the Summa Cum Laude International Music Festival in Vienna, Austria. As a singer, Rowan is a member of the Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir.
We’re also very lucky to have top quality singers at this event to sing along with you:
Soprano – Libby Montgomery
Alto – Keani Pora
Tenor – Nathan Hauraki
Bass – Blake Scanlen
Extra thanks to:
