University of Waikato lecturer shares stage with Lorde

18 October, 2013

Sharing the stage with Lorde

He may not be as well known as a certain Ella Yelich-O’Connor, aka Lorde, but University of Waikato senior lecturer Te Kahautu Maxwell got to share the limelight with the chart-topping pop star during the APRA Silver Scroll Awards in Auckland on Tuesday night.

While Lorde won the big award, the Silver Scroll, for her hit song Royals, Te Kahautu picked up the APRA Maioha Award, celebrating contemporary Māori music, for the song Ruaimoko, which was performed by his niece Maisey Rika –a University of Waikato alumna - and Anika Moa.

Te Kahautu - Te Whakatōhea, Te Whānau ā-Apanui, Ngāi Tai, Ngāti Awa, Tuhoe, Ngāti Porou and Ngāti Maniapoto - wrote the song while Mahuia Bridgman-Cooper composed the music.

Te Kahautu says the song was a lament written after the devastating 2011 Christchurch earthquake.
“That inspired me to write the song, that’s what it’s about, the Maori god of earthquakes and eruptions. I composed a song about what he was doing, devastating Christchurch. It’s a lament and pays tribute to the people who lost their lives and what the residents of Christchurch were going through, being homeless and displaced.”

He had largely forgotten about the song until he was invited to the awards evening.
“I thought I was going there just to support my niece,” he says.
“I didn’t even know I was up for an award.”
“It was a bit of a shock really. I don’t really listen to songs I’ve written so I just went for Maisey.”
While the win was totally unexpected, it’s not the first song Te Kahautu has written.

He is an expert in tikanga Māori and has a strong background in the performing arts, as a composer of haka, mōteatea, waiata-ā-ringa and poi, but Ruaimoko was his first foray into contemporary music.
And quite a successful foray, as it turns out.
“I’m quite impressed really,” he says.
So are we.

ENDS

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