Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir was formed in 1998 with Dr Karen Grylls as its Music Director www.choirsnz.co.nz/voices/members . As a nationally selected choir of the highest calibre, Voices NZ is a chamber choir that is flexible in size and capable of performing a wide repertoire. Many of the singers are alumni of the New Zealand Youth Choir.

The choir made its début at the 1998 New Zealand International Arts Festival in a recital with the New Zealand Chamber Orchestra and Keith Lewis. Later that year it won gold and silver awards at the Tolosa International Choral Competition in the Basque region of Spain.

Since then the choir have collaborated with the prestigious Aradia Ensemble from Canada, resulting in the completion of a world premiere recording of the Vanhal Masses for Naxos, participated in the Otago Festival of the Arts, and concluded the year by recording a CD which features New Zealand repertoire and composers, winning the Best Classical Album at the 2006 NZ Music Awards and represented New Zealand at the 9th International Chamber Choir Competition in Marktoberdorf, Germany.

In 2010 Voices NZ joined several other choirs and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No 8, conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy. In August 2011 Voices NZ was one of the 24 international choirs appearing at the 9th World Symposium on Choral Music in Puerto Madryn in Argentina.  In 2013 Voices NZ joined the NZ Youth Choir for acclaimed performances in the Auckland Arts Festival for concerts celebrating the centenary of Benjamin Britten.

 

The Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir has recently released a recording for Atoll www.atollcd.com  entitled Voice of the Soul. As a flexible choir of between 16 and 32 voices, on this new recording they are shown as Voices 16 from the Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir.

This new disc features Taonga pūoro, traditional Māori instruments, alongside the choir in a repertoire that ranges from Hildegard von Bingen to contemporary works as well as traditional Māori instrumental interludes that are intended to act as a kind of promenade for the listener walking around a gallery of musical sensations.

Hildegard von Bingen’s O Viridissima Virga opens with the striking, deep hollow sound of the Pukaea, a type of wooden trumpet, resonating as the voices enter with Hildegard’s timeless choral sound floating above the background of the instrument. Soon the choral part fills out as the male voices add Maori texts and the sound of the Putorino, a Māori instrument that can act as a trumpet or flute, joins creating a strange and lovely texture. Beautifully done.

David Childs’ (b. 1969) www.sbmp.com/ComposerPage.php?ComposerNum=57 Salve Regina (1998) rises up with this choir providing a lovely blend of voices, pure yet with a robustness. There are some fine, accurate staccato phrases as well as contrasting textures between different sections of the choir to lovely effect. This is beautifully written and sung.

The first interlude features the traditional Maori Pukaea again providing some earthy sonorities that are so evocative.

Morten Lauridsen’s (b.1943) http://mortenlauridsen.net Six Fire Madrigals opens with Oc’e, Lass’ll Bel Viso presented in a slightly declamatory style before a flow is developed, these singers fully able to move naturally from the intense to flowing character of the music with some inspired static moments. Quando Son Piu Lontan has a gentler nature, an exquisite setting of a madrigal text with this choir weaving a superb tapestry. The upbeat Amor, Lo Sento L’alma shows this choir’s terrific vocal agility, terrific accuracy whereas Io Piango reveals some fine harmonies, superbly done by Voices 16, rising in drama before falling back to a gentler nature with some fine vocal control and sensitivity. Lui Serene E Chiare brings more fine harmonies with a theme that would test any choir with its wide intervals, very finely sung here. The more reflective Se Per Havervi Oime has some lovely little decorations beautifully and subtly done.

The second interlude brings the strange wind sounds of the Purerehua, a bullroarer, to which a plaintive wind melody is added leading into the next work, Helen Fisher’s (b.1942) http://sounz.org.nz/contributor/composer/1041  Pounamu. The choir enter over the Maori Kōauau tia, a small flute, bringing a lovely texture that slowly opens out with some beautiful sounds. There is some lovely use of voices and instruments as this composer develops different blends and harmonies. Another terrific piece.

The third interlude features the Poiawhiowhio, a musical instrument made by hollowing a gourd, drilling holes on either side and attaching a cord by which it can be swung around the head creating a whistling, chattering voice and a Karanga Manu that enables the player to mimic several kinds of bird calls. These two instruments bring the sounds of nature in this lovely link between works.

Christopher Marshall’s (b.1956) www.vaiaata.com  Horizon I (Sea and Sky) rises out of the preceding instrumental interlude beautifully, with a gentle sway over which the text is sung is given.

Benjamin Britten’s (1913-1976) www.brittenpears.org Five Flower Songs, Op.47 sit remarkably well along the other works on this disc. To Daffodils brings a lovely freshness of voice before they build some beautiful harmonies in The Succession of the Four Sweet Months, a lovely layering of voices. There is a buoyant Marsh Flowers with Voices 16 showing complete mastery of Britten’s difficult harmonies and intervals and The Evening Primrose where this choir brings a wonderful quality, perfectly blended, subtle harmonies, beautifully controlled. They bring superb accuracy and ensemble in the light hearted yet fiendishly difficult Ballad of Green Broom.

David Hamilton’s (b.1955) www.dbhmusic.co.nz Karakia of the Stars opens with bell like timbres of the Tumutumu, a percussion instrument which can be made from various types of stone and other materials such as wood and bone. The voices gently enter with a fine sonority before a very fine solo soprano voice comes in over the choir.  Another soloist appears whilst, throughout, these two evocative instruments add to the texture. There is very fine singing from the choir in the unusual harmonies evoking the New Zealand landscape, rising centrally to a rich, powerful peak before falling when the Kōauau porutu, a long Koauau with finger holes near the bottom end giving it the ability to jump between two octaves, enters.

The choir rejoins with the Tumutumu reappearing with whispered voices as the music fades into the elements. The Purerehua returns with its whirling sounds making an evocative conclusion.

This terrific choir show a tremendous versatility in this varied yet totally cohesive concert that creates some especially fine atmospheric moments.

They receive an excellent recording made at the Kenneth Myer’s Centre, Auckland University, New Zealand. There are informative notes though some more information about the traditional Maori instruments would have been welcome, though some of instruments used are illustrated.

 

 Click here to view the original review

In a nutshell, as the Festival brochure put it, Ata Reira promised an evening of award-winning choirs, majestic voices and Te Reo Maori in song.

Both separately and together, Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir and the New Zealand Youth Choir delivered all this in a choral celebration of light … and much more. From the start, Paul Lim’s imaginative lighting added so much, with shifting colours and intensities complementing the singers’ groupings and re-groupings for a selection of music spanning 14 centuries.

The dramatic launch involved a medieval chant from the processing choristers gradually diffusing and clustering around a karanga sung by Natasha Wilson; yes, we were definitely in Aotearoa New Zealand in 2015.

A generous booklet offered printed lyrics and background information, as well as making important connections, such as the various settings that shared the same text.

The opening, Stars by Latvian Eriks Esenvalds, was introduced with the unworldly sound of vibrating wine glasses, an ethereal soundcloud floating above the rich sonorities of the Voices NZ singers, conducted by Karen Grylls.

Other musical responses to light included Eric Whitacre’s Lux Aurumque, in which resonant harmonies frayed into shimmering haze, and the almost pointillistic scat textures of Mason Bates’ Observer in the Magellanic Cloud.

More conservative music would come later, with Bob Chilcott’s Canticles of Light stunningly delivered but a banal piece of writing, its laboriously paced three movements separated by sententious chimes.

At the end of the concert, the singers enjoyed David Hamilton’s Ecce Beatam Lucem, a hearty extrovert piece in a genre that this New Zealand composer does so well.

A highlight for me was Murray Schafer’s 1969 Epitaph for Moonlight, a freeform colouristic adventure, responding to onomatopoeic words for moonlight (my favourites were “malooma” and “sheelesk”).

For five enchanted minutes, conductor David Squire seemed to be a painter in sound, his gestures bringing forth luscious sweeps, cries and sighs.

The other high point was specially commissioned Waerenga-a-Hika by Tuirina Wehi, effortlessly combining the jive of kapa haka with a stirring melody that Puccini would have been proud to have written.

What: Ata Reira

Where and when: Auckland Town Hall, Wednesday

Reviewer: William Dart

German conductor Eckehard Stier guided the APO and two choirs through the expressive textures of Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time .

With inspired singing from Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir and the New Zealand Youth Choir, Stier presented Tippett’s testament of hope. Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra’s presentation of Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time was the homegrown highlight of our 2015 Auckland Arts Festival.

We were welcomed first with Arvo Part’s Silouan’s Song, its austerely tonal chorale illuminated by sonorous strings.

The full orchestra then dispensed Messiaen’s Hymne au Saint-Sacrement, a vivid compendium of the Frenchman’s compositional ploys. Conductor Eckehard Stier effortlessly moved from dreamscapes to marches, with their brilliant splashes of saturated colour.

Tippett’s 1944 oratorio is made of sterner stuff. For the composer it was a Passion in the Bach mould , “not of a god-man, but of man whose god has left the light of the heavens for the dark of the collective unconscious”.

One of the great humanistic statements of its century, its plea for peace and tolerance is even more potent today, in a world plagued by violence and genocide.

With inspired singing from Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir and the New Zealand Youth Choir, Stier presented Tippett’s testament of hope.

The young choristers were admirably lithe in flying contrapuntal flurries, and richly expressive in the punctuating spirituals. One felt the intended anger of Go Down, Moses, even through an exquisite pianissimo.

The orchestra clearly enjoyed the combat of gnarly textures, some with those rhythms Aaron Copland playfully claimed as American. Details entranced, too, as when two intertwining flutes introduced the Interludum.

A quartet of fine soloists was dominated by charismatic soprano Indra Thomas and tenor Nicky Spence. Thomas was a force of nature, holding her score out of sight for one thrilling phrase and adding the glow of exhilaration to spirituals.

Spence similarly engaged us, poignantly relating the frustration of being between hammer and anvil over subtle Latin-tinged rhythms.

Victoria Simmonds’ sense of style ensured phrasing of distinction in lines that did not always escape the orchestral surround.

Derek Welton brought a relaxed gravitas as the Narrator but was slightly wanting in dramatic focus towards the end.

These are minor quibbles, however, and if you missed this inspirational concert live, do tune in to Radio New Zealand Concert tonight to hear it.

What: A Child of Our Time
Where and when: Auckland Town Hall, Saturday

Originally aired on Upbeat, Monday 23 March 2015

Peter reviews the Auckland Festival production of Tippet’s Child of Our Time performed by the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Voices NZ and the NZ Youth Choir.

Click to the link below to find the Radio New Zealand Concert podcast.

http://www.radionz.co.nz/concert/programmes/upbeat/audio/20172003/peter-hoar-apo-child-of-our-time-review

Michael Fowler Centre, March 13.

Dame Kiri is now over 70 years of age, and there have been ‘farewell’ concerts all over the world for some years now, but this tour through her home country must be nearly the last. Not that she looks anywhere near the end of anything and, with a carefully constructed program, she sounded just fine. Not that she now sings the wide-ranging coloratura of yesteryear, and she marshalls her resources to suit the state of the voice, but what she did sing here brought back memory after memory of the Kiri Te Kanawa of her prime. With the Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir breaking up the concert Dame Kiri showed no evidence of fatigue at concert’s end.

And the programme was not especially downmarket, as some might have expected, with a number of items that would have been new to the adoring audience. In 2014 the American composer Jake Heggie composed a song cycle for her to poems by Emily Dickinson, and ‘Newer every Day’, a cycle of five songs suited Dame Kiri down to the ground. And they are lovely songs, here done superbly aided by the stylish piano accompaniments of Terence Dennis (he played wonderfully all evening). The monologue from Jack Heggie’s musical setting of the final monologue from Terence McNally’s play ‘Masterclass’ was almost as good.

With the choir Dame Kiri sang Mozart’s Laudate Dominum’ – lacking a little in vocal power but fine nonetheless – and Schubert’s ‘Standchen’ in an arrangement for soprano and female voices, and although I much prefer the version for mezzo and male voices, this was well done. So, too, was the ‘Nun’s Chorus, from ‘Casanova’ and, of course, ‘Hine E Hine’ which was given again as an encore along with ‘O My Beloved, Daddy’ from ‘Gianni Schicchi’.

The concert also featured the choir on its own with brief works by Grylls/Wiremu, Hamilton, Faure and Brahms. Lovely singing but Dame Kiri was the reason the huge, enthusiastic audience was in the house.

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Voices New Zealand, Terence Dennis (pianist) and conductor Karen Grylls
A New Day – a choral improvisation (Voices New Zealand
 David Hamilton:  Un noche de Verano (Voices)
 Jake Heggie:  Newer Every Day – Emily Dickinson poems (Kiri)
 Fauré:  Cantique de Jean Racine (Voices)
 Mozart:  Laudate Domium from Solemn Vespers, K 339 (Kiri and Voices)
 Heggie:  Monologue from Masterclass (Kiri)
 Brahms:  Four Quartets, Op 92 (Voices)
 Schubert:  Ständchen, D 920 (Kiri and Voices)
 Johann Strauss II – Benatzky:  Nuns’ Chorus from Casanova (Kiri and Voices)
 Te Rangi Pai:  Hine e hine (Kiri)

Lindis Taylor, Middle C

Michael Fowler Centre, Sunday 13 March, 6 pm

 

The Michael Fowler Centre was full for the Sunday early evening concert. A song recital with a few contributions from a local choir would not ordinarily have filled St Andrew’s on The Terrace; the name Kiri Te Kanawa changed everything.

Very few singers are still in business over 70 years of age (Joan Sutherland stopped in 1990, aged 64, and I suspect that even if age was starting to tell in the voice or the appearance (which really it is not) this remarkable singer would still pull them in. It’s a combination of a singularly beautiful voice, a charming and outwardly modest personality and an instinct for presenting a programme with conviction, even though on paper it looked interesting rather than compelling.

For indeed, the programme was hardly orthodox. If you expected, from one of the world’s great opera singers a handful of popular arias plus a couple of unfamiliar though worthwhile items, some well-loved choruses and ensembles from opera or oratorio, making use of the choir; then a couple of groups of German lieder and French songs by famous composers, you’d be disappointed.

But the applause, even between the short songs in a cycle, and the standing ovation at the end, probably showed that most of the audience was there for the name rather than their musical knowledge; it would have been the same whatever she sang.

On the other hand, the programme showed much thought and considerable pains had been taken with the stage presentation, especially the opening where the auditorium was plunged into darkness as choir members murmuring very quietly, crept down the aisles; secretively, they began to sing ‘a choral improvisation’ devised by conductor Grylls and the choir’s vocal coach Robert Wiremu, quoting phrases from ‘All through the Night’ and ‘Early one Morning just as the Sun was Rising’ and others. As lights rose the choir’s singing turned into David Hamilton’s a cappella setting of ‘Una noche de verano’ by Spanish poet Antonio Machado. Its haunting quality was enhanced by the sounding of a singing bowl, akin to such instruments as the glass harmonica.

The more conventional part of the concert began with a cycle of songs commissioned from composer Jake Heggie: set to poems of Kiri’s choice; she chose Emily Dickinson, and she spoke naturally about her affection for Dickinson’s poetry. (Heggie’s operas include Dead Man Walking, The End of the Affair and Moby Dick). The settings were engaging, sometimes droll, witty, touching, and Kiri’s performances with Terence Dennis’s exact reflections at the piano, caught their intimacy and disarming character, accompanied with appropriate, natural gestures. The last song, ‘Goodnight’, sort of mocking the convention of the endless reiteration in many an opera aria, very keen-eyed.

The choir sang Fauré’s much-loved Cantique de Jean Racine, in gentle, slightly uninteresting tones. Here, the absence of an orchestra mattered somewhat, even though Dennis’s accompaniment was as sensitive as possible.

The first half ended with the ‘Laudate Dominum’ from Mozart’s Solemn Vespers, for choir and soprano, a favourite that age (of neither the music nor the singer) does not dim. If the absence of opera arias (apart from the encore) was conspicuous, this wonderful sacred solo offered evidence of the still beautiful voice, smaller and less voluptuous perhaps, but still capable of touching the emotions. Her dress too gave little hint of passing years: white blouse with summery, striped skirt, perfectly suiting a singer who, from mid stalls at least, might have been approaching her fifties: she was animated, looking almost youthful.

Another of Heggie’s notable compositions began the second half: the Monologue from Terence McNally’s play, Masterclass, inspired by Maria Callas’s famous 1972 masterclasses in New York. It’s a moving little masterpiece, richly reflecting the lessons of age that might perhaps apply as well to Dame Kiri as they had to Callas. Expressed and dramatized by this evening’s diva with quiet humour and belief; one line stuck in my mind: ‘The older I get the less I know’. Like much else in the concert, a great deal resonated with the experience of aging which would have touched a lot of the audience, including your reviewer. She spoke too about the work of her foundation, which provides valued guidance and tutoring to many young New Zealand singers.

Then the choir returned to sing Four Quartets for four voices, Op 92 to Brahms. It was an opus of songs written at different times, to poems by different poets, which Brahms collected and published in 1884. The first is by Georg Friedrich Daumer, the poet of the Liebeslieder waltzes; and the others by Hermann Allmers, Hebbel and Goethe. All use imagery of the night to conjure feelings of fragility and the passing of time. The acoustic of the auditorium, perhaps dampened by the curtain behind, tended to reduce the impact of the occasional rises in the emotion expressed by the choir, which were singing with great sensibility and insight, and there was the subtle, illuminating piano accompaniment.

Schubert wrote several Ständchen (serenades). This was not the most famous one, much arranged for all manner of voices and instruments. Opus D 920, set to a poem by Grillparzer, as beautiful, if not of similar, anthologising quality, was written originally for baritone and men’s chorus; but Schubert also scored it for soprano and women’s chorus, which is how it was sung. I was a little surprised that Kiri sang this reasonably familiar piece using the score. And again, my attention was particularly caught by Terence Dennis’s sparkling and thoughtful playing the of colourful piano part.

Kiri has made something of a signature piece of the Nuns’ Chorus (‘Nun’s’ in the programme! I noticed more than one nun singing in the chorus), almost from the beginning of her career. The melody by Johann Strauss II was not from a waltz or an operetta, but written some 20 years before his venture into the theatre in 1871. It was spotted about 80 years later by Ralph Benatzky (most famous for his Im weissen Rössl – At the Whitehorse Inn) and included, along with other music by Strauss, in the pasticcio operetta, Casanova, which went down well in the Berlin of the Weimar Republic. It was given imaginative theatrical treatment, though it didn’t quite conjure the atmosphere of Viennese (or here, Berlin) operetta.

The concert ended with the predicable Hine e hine; repeated as a second encore after the first encore, the only operatic offering of the evening: ‘O mio babbino caro’ from Gianni Schicchi. And there was long applause, with most of the audience eventually standing.

I should have commented earlier on the excellence of the programme book, which sets a good example with intelligent biographies of Te Kanawa, Dennis, Grylls, as well as interesting musicological and other details about the pieces. The nature and origin of the Fauré chorus and the ‘Laudate Dominum’ were simply described; Jake Heggie’s two pieces were placed in context; the pithy note on Schubert’s Ständchen might have commented on his settings of the other songs with that name; the provenance of the Nuns’ Chorus was clearly attributed; and dates were employed usefully throughout: not a strong point among many annotators.

But you have to go elsewhere (Wikipedia the most accessible) to refresh your memory about Dame Kiri’s origin. Typically, the biography is coy about her birth: born in Gisborne, Claire Mary Teresa Rawstron, on 6 March 1944. (after all, the note on Newer every day disclosed that it had been commissioned for her 70th birthday in 2014). Why doesn’t the feminist movement insist that birth dates of female personalities are routinely published in the same way as men’s are?

In all a splendid recognition of one of New Zealand’s true international celebrities.

“The full immersive festival experience… for 75 minutes, we were almost part of one of the greatest stories ever told” New Zealand Herald
“Passio exerts its own mystical power” New Zealand Herald
“Passio was an uplifting and memorable musical experience” National Business Review
“The soloists, Lachlan Craig as St Mathew, Joel Amosa as Christ and Madeleine Pierard as the holy spirit were a trio of exceptional voices” National Business Review

At this epic staging of Jack Body’s PASSIO, audiences were invited to meander between orchestra, choir and soloists, creating a surround sound experience. Initially this generated amused and shy grins, at the end nearly everyone embarked on their own musical pilgrimage through the Town Hall stalls and when the concert finished the applause didn’t seem to end. Audiences left enthralled and engaged. A complete recording of the concert will be published by Radio New Zealand Concert and a video will be available through SOUNZ at a later stage.

Great concert snippets and critical commentary from RNZ Concert‘s review of PASSIO. The conversation continues….

What would Jack do? – A review of PASSIO; by Alex Taylor, Pantograph Punch

LOVE VOICES is the first multi-concert package offered by VOICES and programmes feature inspiring New Zealand composers, the world premiere of a new commission by Victoria Kelly, delightful French music and well-known Baroque classics in a concert with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra.

The season opens with the immersive surround sound experience that is Jack Body’s Passio at Auckland Arts Festival on Sunday 19 March where the audience wanders freely around and through the performance area to fully absorb the resonances of musicians and singers.

Also in Auckland, VOICES joins the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra in August for Baroque Voices, while The Unusual Silence in September commemorates war and features the Victoria Kelly commission. Salut Printemps welcomes spring and will tour four centres.

Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand Trust chief executive Arne Herrmann says the 2017 season provides an opportunity to showcase the vocal excellence and versatility of this national choir.

“It’s been our dream for a long time to share this wonderful ensemble with more New Zealanders on a more regular basis.”

VOICES artistic director Karen Grylls is thrilled with the programme for 2017 saying it allows the choir to “flex its artistic muscle. It will challenge our singers to embrace the different choral sounds and textures from the Baroque to today. Performing works by our contemporary New Zealand composers, including a commissioned work from Victoria Kelly to commemorate the WWI centenary is a real privilege for us.”

VOICES performs live in Auckland, Tauranga, Wellington, Hawke’s Bay and beyond during 2017. Choral fans can also add New Zealand Youth Choir concerts to their subscription choice.

For more information about the 2017 programmes and LOVE VOICES click here.

Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand Trust receives major funding from Creative New Zealand and the New Zealand Community Trust. The New Zealand Youth Choir’s Principal Sponsor is Infratil.

Karen has been with Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand (CANZ), the organisation managing these choirs, since 1989 when taking over as Music Director of NZYC. In 1998 she founded Voices and became the overall Artistic Director in 2011.

“There is still a lot I want to achieve, especially working with VOICES,” says Karen. “We have such a high calibre of singers in this ensemble and we are ready to take things to the next level. This exciting prospect was a big incentive to renew my role with the choirs.”

“Karen is such an asset for our choirs, an inspiration to the singers and a supremely competent choir leader, even on a global scale.” says CANZ CEO Arne Herrmann, “We love her energy, her sense of adventure and desire for innovation and collaborations. We are thrilled that Karen will continue her leadership role for another three years.”

The new member to the artistic team is 38 year old Michael Stewart. He is assuming the role of Deputy Music Director, which was held last by James Tibbles, a key figure in New Zealand’s Early Music scene. By his own admission Michael started his relationship with NZYC as ‘groupie’, when his then-girlfriend-now-wife Anna Sedcole was singing in the soprano section. After a short stint in the bass section of NZYC, Michael was the recipient of a Dame Malvina Major Arts Excellence Award and moved to Canada for a Master of Music degree majoring in organ performance. Back in Wellington he became Music Director of The Tudor Consort in 2007 and Organist and Director of Music at the Wellington Cathedral of St Paul in 2011.

“Michael is an extraordinary find for us.“ says Arne Herrmann, “His experience working with choirs, his strong musical expertise and on top of that being such an outstanding organist and accompanist, makes Michael a wonderful addition to our artistic team, supporting our Music Director David Squire.”

“I am absolutely thrilled at being appointed to this position” ,says Michael. “I feel that my particular skill set, especially the ability to accompany and conduct, make me an ideal fit. I’m looking forward to making music with this outstanding choir, and developing my own skills through contact with the Choirs Aotearoa Artistic Team.”

Both contracts will commence in January 2017 with VOICES being on stage at the Auckland Arts Festival in March and the new NZYC coming together in Wellington for a week-long course in April and concerts on the Kapiti Coast, Featherston and ANZAC commemorations in the city.

Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand receives major funding from Creative New Zealand and the New Zealand Community Trust. The New Zealand Youth Choir is sponsored by Infratil.