Kiwi klassics

Pianist Tahu Matheson's recording for Kiwi Pacific Records in 1998 includes concert studies by New Zealand composer Edwin Carr.

Kiwi Records classical catalogue

Kiwi Records was a saviour of New Zealand composers. The label, started by publisher A.H. & A.W. Reed in 1957, was one of the few local outlets for recording classical music.

Composer edition series

Singer Tony Vercoe took charge of Reed’s Kiwi Records division in 1959. He had trained as a classical singer alongside Inia Te Wiata and wanted to record local classical music. Helped by the New Zealand Composers’ Foundation and the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), Kiwi Records began the New Zealand Composer Edition series.

An early disc was Landfall in unknown seas, which matched the poetry of one of New Zealand’s major poets with the music of one of its major composers. Allen Curnow read his poem, which was set to Douglas Lilburn’s music played by the Alex Lindsay String Orchestra. It got a rave review from Gramophone magazine.

Kiwi Records became for many years a focal point for a developing awareness of our musical identities, encouraging and fostering our talents in a practical way, and professionally giving us a new and vastly wider audience both here and overseas through radio systems.

Douglas Lilburn

The series went on to record compositions by Ashley Heenan, Edwin Carr, Larry Pruden and others. In 1976 the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s recording of Lilburn’s Symphony No. 2, conducted by Ashley Heenan, won album of the year.

Kiwi Records launched the recording career of Kiri Te Kanawa. Her first LP, Kiri (1966), quickly went gold, and Kiri in concert won a Loxene Gold Disc Album Award in 1967. Kiwi Records also launched Malvina Major, who still records with the label.

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Image copyright Kiwi Pacific Records International Ltd.

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Kiri Te Kanawa

Kiri Te Kanawa as Countess Rosina in the Marriage of Figaro

Kiwi diva

One of our most successful and recognised international performers is the opera singer Kiri Te Kanawa. Her fame mostly came from performing music that is not New Zealand made, but she also gained international exposure for traditional and contemporary Maori songs through recordings such as ‘Pokarekare ana’.

After winning the prestigious Mobil Song Quest in 1965 Kiri left for the London Opera Study Centre. Her tutor felt that she lacked singing technique but that she had a gift for captivating audiences.

She rose to international prominence after performing at Covent Garden, and she went on to appear in major roles at the world’s great opera houses, including London’s Royal Opera House, the New York Metropolitan, Milan’s La Scala and the Paris Opera. By the time she won the role of the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro in 1969, the conductor, Colin Davis, declared that he couldn't believe his ears: ‘I've taken thousands of auditions, but it was such a fantastically beautiful voice.’

It is for her performance at the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in St Paul's Cathedral that Kiri Te Kanawa is best remembered by many New Zealanders. An estimated television audience of 600 million people saw her perform Handel's ‘Let the bright seraphim’. The following year she was made a Dame of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.

Despite being based overseas since 1965, Kiri Te Kanawa performed regularly at home. As part of New Zealand’s sesquicentenary celebrations in 1990 she gave a series of homecoming concerts, and her Millennium Concert in Gisborne in January 2000 was broadcast live to over 80 countries.

Kiri Te Kanawa officially retired from the opera stage in 2004 (although she reemerged for a performance at The Met in 2010 and still sings other concerts fairly regularly). In response to the many accolades she received throughout her career, she described singing as ‘the reason why I was born’.

This video clip is sourced from the YouTube website. The Ministry for Culture and Heritage does not claim any responsibility for the contents or copyright status of the clip.

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