A Huia calls the Tui singing in a Kowhai tree

Helping singers include New Zealand material in your repertoire

Michael Vinten has received an award from the Lilburn Trust for collating and producing music of New Zealand art-song written prior to 1950. Initially intending it to be one volume, the project has now expanded to three volumes.

Titled Call of the Huia, it is envisaged this new resource will be of great benefit to singers and students wishing to include New Zealand material into their repertoire. Each volume will include a sound recording of the songs, giving it a wider appeal to music lovers generally.

In this lunchtime talk Michael Vinten will explain what constitutes a New Zealand art-song and the process of selecting material. This will include some interesting stories of past New Zealand composers, with wider links to New Zealand’s history.

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About the speaker

Michael Vinten has been the Wellington Chorus Master and Associate Conductor for New Zealand Opera for twenty-eight years, as well as conducting for many other opera companies and musical groups. Having studied music history and composition at Victoria University of Wellington he went on to study a Masters Degree in orchestral conducting at Cincinnati University.