Homecoming for Far North tenor on NZ Youth Choir tour

The New Zealand Youth Choir performs in the Far North and Whangārei next month

When the New Zealand Youth Choir (NZYC) performs in the Far North next month, it will be a bit of a homecoming for one of the singers.

The NZYC is heading to Northland for two public concerts – at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds as part of the official Waitangi Day ceremony on February 6, and at the Whangārei Boys High School auditorium on February 8. Under the direction of David Squire, NZYC gathers New Zealand’s finest young voices aged 18–25; there are currently 50 members from all over the country.

Tenor Riley Rolton - who spent time growing up in Coopers Beach and Whangārei, is excited to be returning to his old stomping ground, and Wellington soprano Tess Dalgety-Evans says singing at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds will have special meaning for her.

Rolton is delighted to be returning to Northland, having previously performed in his home territory while on tour with the New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir when he was a student at St Paul’s Collegiate in Hamilton. He is now studying graphic design at Waikato Institute of Technology.

Riley Rolton, from Coopers Beach, will be close to home when he performs with the New Zealand Youth Choir in Waitangi on February 6.

Dalgety-Evans works with the nation’s founding documents as an educator, and earlier this year she hosted the entire youth choir on its visit to the He Tohu exhibition at National Library. The choir also performed in the space.

“We ended with all 50+ of us singing inside the rimu heart-shaped document room. He Tohu is a long-term exhibition at Te Puna Mātauranga National Library of New Zealand that houses the original sheets of Te Tiriti o Waitangi 1840, alongside He Whakaputanga [the Declaration of Independence] 1835 and the Women’s Suffrage Petition 1893,” she said.

Dalgety-Evans feels that standing at Waitangi “will only deepen those hononga [connections] as we mihi to the nation through song; kia whakamana te whenua, kia whakamana te tangata”.

Acclaimed composer Tuirina Wehi (Ngāti Ruapani) will also be in Northland with the New Zealand Youth Choir – to teach them her new waiata composed especially for the choir.

The NZYC is getting ready to travel to Europe to compete in Aarhus, Denmark, for the Grand Prix of Nations before returning to the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod in Wales, where they previously won “Choir of the World” in 1999.

The last time the NZYC was in Europe in 2016, they sang another of Tuirina’s compositions, Waerenga-a-Hika (arranged by Robert Wiremu), and won the Grand Prix at the 2016 IFAS in the Czech Republic. NZYC has launched a Givealittle page to support their 2025 European tour and ensure no singer is left behind.

In between the public concerts on February 6 at Waitangi and the Whangārei performance, the NZYC will spend much of February 7 working with students at One Tree Point School. Then during the day of February 8, the choir will “pop up” for a performance at the Whangārei market. Book here.