Music

I am sure that we are all familiar with the saying that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” And I have come to the conclusion of presenting our experience thus far in a medium of only photographs taken during this trip with brief descriptions. My intent is that this exhibit will offer you, the viewer, the opportunity to revel in this fantastic voyage through our actual lenses as if you were right here with us. Please enjoy.

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One of the most rewarding things we have had the pleasure of doing on this trip is working with young singers who are eager and excited to grow in music. We’ve been working on our own pieces for this tour for quite some time now, about two years from some songs, and every rehearsal is geard towards not only learning the pieces, but being better musicians each time we sing them.

What is so wonderful about working with these kids is that we now get to teach the things Professor Niblock has taught us over the past couple of years to these talented young singers who are just as excited about music as we are.

In Whitianga we worked with two groups of students who shared their music with us. The first group sang a popular song called “Demons” by Imagine Dragons. We taught them about singing with tall vowels and enunciated consonants. We then got to share with them our own demon song, “Daemon Irrepit Collidus,” to which one of the students in the workshop told us we were “singing ninjas.”

The second, younger group shared with us their song “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver. As none of these kids have ever been to West Virginia, we got to share what West Virginia and the United States is like, and we worked with them on how to tell a story with their songs and what it is like to sing about home. Our example of songs from home were our beautiful Alma Mater and “Coffee Grows on White Oak Trees,” a play party song that references the practice of boiling acorns from white oak trees as a coffee substitute during the American Civil War when coffee was too difficult to come by. We talked with the kids about what these songs mean, and showed them that the way we sing the words helps tells the story. A young boy eager to help us tell the story of “Coffee Grows on White Oak Trees,” informed us us, “you don’t grow coffee, you make it!”

After the workshop, we had a little extra time to sit with the kids and learn about their interests and let them ask questions about singing or about America.

Beyond the wonderful bonding experience our choir gets to have with other student choirs through these workshops, we’re also learning a great deal about music from a different perspective. Hearing the sound of a choir is much different coming from the audience, and different still coming from a teaching point of view, so we started listening to the music in an entirely new fashion. We got to hear for ourselves what a difference diction or changing our vowels can make, a distinction that is harder to hear from inside the choir. This perspective will ultimately make us better musicians and gave us a deeper understanding as to why Professor Niblock gives us certain singing instructions.

We have another school visit tomorrow morning in Christchurch, and I can’t wait to meet more inspiring kids who are excited to sing.

I sit here in the small airport at Rotorua.  The cafe is well-priced, the cappuccino greater than Starbucks quality.  This regional airport is not unlike Erie’s.  The only difference–which is reasonably jarring–is that there is no security.

Our tour is about to depart for the South Island, also known as Middle-Earth.  But in doing so we must bid adieu to the kind city of Rotorua, New Zealand’s geothermal capital.  It feels as if we are about to return to earth after a junket on Venus.  The city is speckled with vents constantly releasing sulfurous steam.  Sure, it was unpleasant to smell, and I may never eat an egg again, but it felt as if we were transported back in time.

You could easily imagine the first Maori tribes discovering the area, confounded by the ethereal mist as were we.  We were fortunate enough to witness two Maori cultural presentations, both of which elucidated the islands they call “Aoteoroa.”  Appropriately for us, each time vocal music was highlighted, serving to bridge the wide gap of the Pacific and bring their culture close to our American hearts.

Beyond geysers and  ceremonies, we had the privilege of singing with a high school choir at a small Anglican church.  One of their songs featured a Karanga, which a microtonal Maori chant invoking ancestral and natural spirits to come welcome guests of the tribe.  It soared straight through the diatonic choral background and moved every man, woman, and child towards its attention.

Middle-Earth awaits us next.  If it can live up to Rotorua, we are surely in for a treat.

I know that it has been several days since my last post and the only excuse that I can come up with is that the chamber choir has been so engrossed with performing for the residents of Whitianga (pronounced “Fit-tea-anga”), being welcomed into their homes and lives, and walking around for the last three days with our jaws dragging on the beaches.

For as flowery a writer as I am, it is tremendously difficult to explain how strikingly and mesmerizingly beautiful this portion of New Zealand is. Our host families have been utterly welcoming and accommodating of us and our presence in their homes.

For Ben and me, we had the pleasure of staying with our host-father Mike – an engineer with a home that faces one of the areas beautiful and numerous beaches. The view from my room on the second floor looked onto the beach into the bay. It’s pretty fantastic, folks.

Our first true chamber choir concert on May 20th was a massive success, where we performed twenty-three pieces of our repertoire with two of the songs performed with the Mercury Bay Community Choir – “Hine e Hine” and “Holy Spirit, Don’t You Leave Me.” A successful performance to say the least!

The next day was wrought with Hot Water beaching, cafés, boat rides around the local and stunning coastline – particularly to Cathedral Cove and to the beach where the arrival to Narnia in the second movie was filmed.

This was followed up with another beach visit to further encourage me to move to New Zealand where I am going to live on a boat in the bays: this is going to happen. Oh! And have I mentioned the food and fellowship that these loving folks offered us! Green lipped mussels, pavlova, and New Zealand wines to name some of the bounty! All capped off with singing, life lessons, and astronomy lessons about our brand new celestial views of the southern stars.

Our last day consisted of a visit to the local area school where we hosted a residency for the students of Mercury Bay and collaborated with them to increase musicality and the transfer of shared musical experience between cultures and ages.

Followed by a day trip hike to Shakespeare Point and the surrounding area. Megan, Ben, Dan, Troy, and I were fortunate enough to be invited around to explore Whitianga from the air in a two-seat plane, built by Mercury Bay Area high school students, and a gyrocopter: the only one in the area and one of seventy in all of New Zealand.

A perfect three days in paradise; unrivaled by anything I have yet seen or experienced in this realm. I have not stopped smiling since landing in Aoteoroa (Land of the Long White Cloud: New Zealand).

Yesterday, after we all got settled in, and after our first real sleep since Monday, the choir had the priviledge of visiting the Auckland War Memorial Museum to learn about New Zealand’s vast natural, military, and multicultural histories. The first floor of the museum focused on the indigenous Polynesian and New Zealand people, the Māori. We experienced the intricacy of the artwork, the resourcefulness of the clothing, and the careful carving of the waka (giant canoes), all created with great precision and symbolism at the hands of Māori people. Each piece held insight into the culture of the Māori people.
The second floor took a look at the natural history of New Zealand. We took a journey through time to look at the land, plants, and animals of the past and present. The most notable animal of the Island’s past has to be the Moa, New Zealand’s “chicken.”

This chicken stood a shocking 12 feet tall and weighed approximately 570 pounds. The Moa has been exstinct for several hundred years, but lives on in its unique nature. Other featured birds of the museum included the kiwi, a New Zealand symbol. The kiwi is a flightless bird that still lives on the Islands. When explorers first sent back specimen of the kiwi to europe, people believed it was a hoax because of the bird’s fur-like feathers and unusual shape.

The final floor focused on New Zealand’s contributions in the first and second World Wars, as well as the New Zealand Wars of the 19th Century. A stone wall with golden carved names commemorates the thousands of fallen during these times.

We’re all eager to continue learning about the multiculturalism of the country as we head into historical Rotorua in a few days to experience traditional Māori customs.