The New Zealand Youth Choir global award shows there's soft power in more than just sports

The Spinoff

4 days ago

The New Zealand Youth Choir was recently awarded the title of 'Choir of the World' at the Llangollen International Eisteddfod in Wales. Labour arts spokesperson Rachel Boyack reflects on her experiences touring with the choir over 20 years ago.
If you didn't hear the news this week, our beloved New Zealand Youth Choir won the 'Choir of the World' title at the Llangollen International Eisteddfod in Wales. The Llangollen Eisteddfod is the crème de la crème, the Holy Grail if you like, of choral competitions, and winning the title is an outstanding feat for a national choir from a small country like Aotearoa.
I woke up to the news last Sunday morning, and after shedding a tear, I watched the choir's winning set, swelling with pride for these outstanding young singers and how they represent us so admirably on the world stage.
I've been lucky to spend time with the choir this year and to see them perform a number of times. This has included watching the choir performing live on Breakfast TV at Waitangi on Waitangi Day, and filling Holy Trinity Cathedral in Auckland in an extraordinary farewell concert.
I've been struck by the joy the choir has when they perform, and the obvious respect they have for each other, and the choir leadership. It's hard to pull together a group of fifty 18-25 year-olds from across New Zealand and turn them into a well-oiled team, but that is exactly what music director David Squire, assistant music director Michael Stewart and vocal consultant Morag Atchison have done.
The New Zealand Youth Choir was established in 1979 by Dr Guy Jansen, with professor Peter Godfrey acting as its first conductor. Both giants of the choral music scene in New Zealand. The purpose of the choir is to develop choral excellence among some of the country's most talented young singers, and contribute to other musical goals, like commissioning new work from New Zealand composers, and training the next generation of global opera singers, conductors and music teachers.
The choir quickly cemented itself on the international choral scene, winning big awards from the very beginning, being invited to sing at significant New Zealand events, and performing with the likes of Dame Kiri te Kanawa at Wembley.
According to my mother, I first heard the choir singing during the summer of 1989-90, while holidaying in St Arnaud as a 10-year-old. While I have many memories of tramping around Lake Rotoiti with my brother and father, and staying overnight in the hut, I don't recall the concert!
It wasn't until I was age 13 that I fell in love with the choir listening to their first album, Te Roopu Rangatahi Waiata o Aotearoa (1992), which featured choral works from some of New Zealand's greatest composers: Jack Body, David Griffiths, Douglas Mews, and prolific choral composer, and alumni, David Hamilton.
I would listen to that album every day, probably driving my family mad! I was entranced by the youthful but rich voices, the incredible blend of the choir, and the perfection of the intonation and timing. This was a craft I wanted to master.
At that young age, I set myself a goal to be selected for the New Zealand Youth Choir and joined every choir possible throughout my teenage years to achieve it.
After spending two years as a member of the New Zealand Secondary Students' Choir, and beginning music studies at the University of Auckland, I was selected to join the choir as a 19-year-old and was privileged to be a member from 2000-2004, including two international tours, one to the United States, and a later tour of Europe, where we traversed Italy, Slovenia, Hungary, Austria and finally a week in St Petersburg and Moscow in Russia.
Among many formative moments from that European tour in 2004, one sticks out.
On our way to Europe we stopped off in Singapore and performed to a packed town hall of high school students – our first concert of the tour.
It wasn't the European Art Song, or Bach's motets, or Antonio Lotti's famous baroque masterpiece 'Crucifixus' that led to the audience of high school students giving us a standing ovation.
It was a performance of 'I te timatanga', gifted to the Choir by the Wehi Whanau and that tells the story of the separation of Ranginui from Papatūānuku, that led to a hall full of screaming schoolgirls on their feet.
The kind of response usually reserved for a 1990s boyband!
As a choir girl it wasn't something I had ever experienced before.
We described ourselves as 'the All Blacks of the singing world.' Every time the choir travelled overseas it would return with a trophy haul that required the building of a new cabinet, and accolades from top international choral judges. Pulling on the black and silver uniform and representing our country overseas was a thrill, and one of the privileges of my life.
While the choir receives funding from Creative New Zealand, they have to rely on fundraising and personal contributions from choir members to travel internationally. That has always felt inequitable given the work the choir does to promote New Zealand internationally, especially when compared to some award-winning sporting codes. It also means some singers may miss out on being involved in the choir due to financial constraints.
The current government has continued the work of the previous Labour government and released a draft Arts Strategy: Amplify. One of the 2030 targets listed in the strategy is for New Zealand to rank among the top 25 nations in the world for culture and heritage soft power, resulting in high-value cultural tourism and exports. It is an ambitious target, and I support it.
The New Zealand Youth Choir is an excellent example of that soft power in action. Everyone at Llangollen in Wales was talking about the New Zealand Youth Choir, with reports on the choir broadcast all over the media in the region, and globally. Social media lit up with videos of the choir's performances, and the incredible haka they performed for their music director David Squire after their win was announced.
The New Zealand Youth Choir, and their sister choirs, the New Zealand Secondary Students' Choir and Voices New Zealand rely on government funding from Creative NZ. Currently, they receive multi-year funding from the Totara Programme, which CNZ is ending.
While I am confident that the choir's success on the world stage will ensure their funding continues, having the certainty of multi-year funding means the choirs can operate with confidence, plan international tours and commission new works by New Zealand composers.
And this alumni, and the rest of New Zealand, can continue to be so very, very proud of our world-class New Zealand Youth Choir.