Rotorua Māori Choir


With songs that “charm the ear and haunt the memory” members of the Rotorua Māori Choir set in wax over 50 titles during their legendary 1930 recording sessions.

Anglican clergyman Frederick A. Bennett first formed the group in the early 1900s, and in 1930 the Columbia Graphophone Company in Sydney decided to send a special recording outfit to New Zealand in order to record the group. Comprising 27 members at the time of recording, the male-female choir were mostly from Ngāti Whakaue and sang a variety of material, from poi songs, stick games and love ballads, to Christian hymns and songs by composer Alfred Hill.

The lorry that transported the Columbia recording outfit from Auckland to Rotorua for the "Maori Recording Expedition", April 1930
'E Pari Rā' recorded by the Rotorua Māori Choir, 1930
Tūnohopū meeting house
Columbia Graphophone's catalogue listing the Rotorua Māori Choir's recordings, c. 1930
The Rotorua Māori Choir's 1930s shellac recordings were re-issued as a 10-inch vinyl album c. 1961
A window display for the Rotorua recordings from the Bristol Piano Co. in Dunedin, published in the Australian Phonograph News in August, 1930
Rotorua Māori Choir outside the Tūnohopū meeting house, where the Columbia recordings were made over 12 days in April in 1930
'Haere Haere Ra E Hine' - canoe poi song - by Paraire Tomoana, recorded by the the Rotorua Māori Choir in their first sessions on 14 April 1930, and released by Columbia
Another vinyl re-issue of the Rotorua Māori Choir's recordings: this one, thought to be from the late 1960s, also features recordings by the Aotearoa Māori Choir
Inside the flyer for the Rotorua Māori Choir recordings, April 1930
Flyer for the Rotorua Māori Choir recordings that took place in April 1930
A Māori warrior is prominent in this display for the Rotorua recordings in the window of W. Gordon Ltd. in Wellington, featured in the Australian Phonograph News, September, 1930
Columbia Graphophone's catalogue listing its artists and the recordings they have released, including the Rotorua Māori Choir, c. 1930
Trivia:

When the Rotorua Maori Choir discs were released in 1930, they were heavily promoted by New Zealand retailers. Among the innovative window displays created by the retailers were those by Moore’s in Auckland, who recruited “charming Maori wahines” to sit in the window and make kete. Howie’s, in Newton, Auckland, exhibited a Māori pā in their shop window.

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