She is One of Us Spotlight: Maori Songs & Jenny McLeod

Its concert week! All this week we'll be spotlighting different aspects of the concert that you will enjoy on Friday. Don't forget to purchase your tickets by clicking the Brown Paper Ticket link on the left.

Three Maori Songs, composed and arranged by Jenny McLeod

notes by Miranda Johnson

 As part of the ‘She is One of Us’ concert, the Wisconsin Chamber Choir will be singing three songs in the Maori language, composed or arranged by the New Zealand composer Jenny McLeod. ‘E Te Ariki’ (‘O Lord’) is an arrangement of a well-known Maori hymn, in this version with a descant. McLeod has arranged many Maori hymns for the tribe of which she is a member, Ngati Rangi. The tribe is Catholic and often performs at the annual ‘Hui Aranga’, an annual event that fosters a Maori Catholic community throughout New Zealand through dance and choral competitions. ‘Kia Hora te Marino’ is based on a traditional Maori proverb. It has been attributed to Rangawhenua, a late nineteenth-century prophet who peacefully opposed the land dispossession of Maori people in New Zealand. ‘Nau te Hau’ is McLeod’s own composition and lyrics. She explained to me recently that it is a vocal arrangement of the end them of the 1985 film, ‘The Silent One’, for which she composed the music. As she puts it, the music is accompanied in this version, ‘with some simple Maori words relating directly to the natural world, more or less along the lines of a hymn.’

           

McLeod is one of New Zealand’s leading composers and, although Pakeha (a descendant of white settlers), has long been involved in composing music around Maori themes and with Maori lyrics. Since becoming a member of Ngati Rangi, she has arranged many Maori hyms and is currently involved in the staging of an opera based on nineteenth-century historical events concerning Ngati Rangi leaders and others. She studied in Paris with Messaien in the late 1960s and was a Professor of Music at Victoria University of Wellington in the 1970s before giving that up to focus on composition and, later, writing about music theory.

Read more HERE