@bestofopera.en: 🎵 "Te Iwi E" - "Leonessa" Auē te aroha, te mamae i ahau e. Ah, the love and the pain inside me. 🎭 This waiata is by Ngāpō Wehi, and the New Zealand music centre's catalogue lists it as a piece of te reo māori and kapa haka, written for mixed choir. Wehi lived from 1934 to 2016. With his wife, Pīmia Wehi, he founded the group Te Waka Huia in 1981, which became a national benchmark. He received the Queen's Service Medal in 2011 and an honorary doctorate from Massey University in 2001. She received the title of Manukura Wahine in 2017, kapa haka's highest honour for a woman. ✨ What you're watching is the final of The Big Sing, New Zealand's secondary school choral competition, which brings together around 8,000 students from more than 200 schools. The 2025 final ran from August 28 to 30, at the Dunedin Town Hall. In te reo māori, iwi means people, tribe, or nation; te is the singular article; and the e at the end is a call, a vocative. The title is, literally, a call to the people. 🎤 The choir is Leonessa, from Takapuna Grammar School, in Auckland, a school founded in 1927. Elise Bradley conducts them. She was awarded the Order of Merit of New Zealand in 2018, and before that spent fourteen and a half years leading the Toronto Children's Chorus, in Canada. One detail closes the circle: this same work's catalogue entry lists a performance by the Toronto choir, under her direction. She was already conducting this waiata on the other side of the world. Would you recognize your own language if it came back to you sung? 🎼 Ngāpō Wehi · composer · 🇳🇿 · 1934-2016 🎤 Leonessa, Takapuna Grammar School · girls' choir · 🇳🇿 🎤 Elise Bradley · conductor · 🇳🇿 📺 The Big Sing Finale 2025, Dunedin Town Hall Send this to someone who'd love this story. #BestOfOpera #TeReoMaori #KapaHaka #TheBigSing

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Wednesday 29 July 2026 20:01:35 GMT