Horomona Horo | Waiora

You Tube Links
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQOt4t9wGNs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUCGOGgNTy8&feature=youtu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KVSWx-qm10

Composer, practitioner and cross genre collaborator, Horomona Horo fuses the traditional instruments of the Maori, taonga puoro (singing treasures), within a diverse range of cultural and musical forms. The only fulltime Maori practitioner of this ancient musical art-form, Horo was hailed the “master of his generation” in December 2009 by Maori culture magazine, Mana. In 2007 he became the recognised international Maori face of the genre after representing New Zealand at the 90th Commemorations of the Battle of Passchendaele, giving the first international orchestral performance of the instruments with the Weimarer Staatskapelle Orchestra and European tours with Moana and the Tribe and Canti Maori.
Mentored by tohunga(masters) of taonga puoro, the late Dr Hirini Melbourne and Dr Richard Nunns, in 2001, Horo won the inaugural Dynasty Heritage Concerto. Performances including orchestral, hip-hop at Pao Pao Pao, Opera in the Park, guest artist for NZ in Beijing and Hong Kong, chamber music and Irish collaboration - Green Fire Islands have enabled Horomona to extend his knowledge and skills across diverse genres whilst remaining a cultural and musical educator in his own right. He is currently the Maori cultural consultant to the Voices NZ Choir for whom he has also co-composed work and toured in South America.
Horo continues to immerse himself in the unique sounds, techniques and intrinsic significance and practises of taonga puoro. Not only of musical significance, the instruments are part of the holistic culture of all life, birth, death and nature, to which he was born. Each instrument has a specific use within rites of passage, storytelling and daily life of the Maori peoples. This daily life-breathing of the instruments is the distinguishing mark of his work and recent compositions and collaborations with Nga Tae, the NZTrio, UK Composer Paul Lewis (Legends of Rotorua) and Italian Flautist, Luca Manghi, bear witness to this fact in a strong, audible manner, combined with a sound knowledge of contemporary musical techniques. To showcase the unique sounds of the taonga puoro, Horo frequently performs as a duo with guitar.
As an extension of cultural emersion, Horo works as an educator with the New Zealand Medical Board in traditional practices and the New Zealand Music Commission in high school education including Maori music, dance and aspects of daily culture. He is currently the first student to be enrolled in the Master of Music programme developed at the Conservatory at the University of Waikato to include the study of traditional Maori instrument practise. In 2010 he was hailed in Mana as “the master of his generation”, a fact recently attested to by noted NZ composer, Dame Gillian Whitehead. Horomona is of Nga Puhi, Taranaki and Ngati Porou