NIGHT OF MAORI ART

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXV, Issue 160, 22 June 1935, Page 5

NIGHT OF MAORI ART

Waipatu Choir Concert

HAVELOCK N. NEXT THURSDAY

The Waipatu Maori Choir is to give • shilling concert in the Village Hall, Havelock North, on Thursday evening next, and included in the programme will be some of the songs and dances that the Maoris learnt from the Rarotongan party who visited New Zealand last year. Also on the programme will be several sacred items and negro spirituals, besides hakas, pois, and instrumental iteme.

The choir will sing “Abide With Me” in Maori, and it is interesting to recall that when the choir sang this same item at the New Zealand Maori choir championships in April, the judge, Mr Carrington Whitby, described the singing as “the finest 1 have ever heard in the United Kingdom or in Europe.” Items will be given by Madame Mer•ar, of Napier, and Miss Gwen Sissons, of Hastings.

In a report of the concert given by the choir in Hastings recently, the “Tribune” said: “The singing of the choir last evening was quite easily the best choral singing heard in tho town for a number of years past, grid was a striking example of tho degree to which the beauty of the Maori voice, and the Maori’s natural sense of artistry, can bo developed under expert guidance. It was almost inevitable that one left the hall wondering why it is that there is no pakeha choir in Hastings that can come within measurable distance of this wonderfully fine combination of Maori singers.' l