Riki Gooch-Pirihi Photo: RNZ
Ā mua. A rough translation from Te Reo to English is ''the future'.
It's the latest work from composer and Kiwi percussion phenomenon Riki Gooch-Pirihi, but it's also a good description of his musical focus - always looking forward.
From his childhood days playing cornet in a brass band, to percussion, to his jazz drumming epiphany, to rock stardom with the band Trinity Roots, to formulating his own style of conducting to create modern music using traditional Māori instruments, Gooch-Pirihi has never rested on his laurels, or any metaphor really.
He could have stayed in a brass band, he could have remained being a drummer, but for Gooch-Pirihi, creativity comes best when he steps outside the comfort zone.
Commissioned by Chamber Music New Zealand and with words by Tina Makereti, Ā Mua is a work for voice, taonga pūoro and western instruments which makes its debut as part of the Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts in Wellington on Friday 6 March.
Gooch-Pirihi is directing the whole thing, not in the style of a classical conductor, but in a jazz influenced approach known as 'conduction'.
Riki Gooch at Wellington Jazz Festival 2020 Photo: Stephen A'Court Photography
Explaining the process to RNZ Concert's Bryan Crump, Gooch-Pirihi says conduction is a form of structured improvisation created by the American jazz cornet player Butch Morris.
Rather than following notes on a page, the band leader directs the performance with hand gestures.
The 'conductioner' can cue band members in and out, suggest ways of playing a note, or which sections to repeat. The notes themselves - they're left up to the players.
Gooch-Pirihi has adopted conduction to directing instruments from his own Māori heritage, Taonga Pūoro.
He finds it creatively more satisfying than using classical musical notation, which he finds too "linear".
The Māori concept of time is not an arrow. In Te Āo Māori (the Māori world) past, present and future exist together.
So does the music.
Ā mua features the talents of narrator Tina Makereti, Serenity Thurlow (viola), Ruby Solly (cello/Taonga Pūoro), Al Fraser (Taonga Pūoro), Gooch-Pirihi's son Kiva Parsons-Pirihi (Taonga Pūoro), with Gooch-Pirihi leading.
Following its Arts Festival premiere, Chamber Music NZ will tour Ā mua around Aotearoa with dates in the second half of the year in Christchurch, Gisborne, Nelson and Auckland
