Te Rerenga Wairua
Length: 7'00''
Instrumentation: 3(1pic).2.2.2 - 4.2.3(1btrb).1 - timp.perc(2) - strings
Te Rerenga Wairua - performed by the APO Summer School
Te Rerenga Wairua was composed in 2020 for the APO Summer School as part of the Rising Star Young Composer-in-Residence programme. Te Rerenga Wairua, otherwise known as Cape Reinga, is a sacred place for tangata whenua. Te Rerenga Wairua is translated as the ‘leaping place of spirits,’ and it marks the destination to which Māori spirits travel after death. The spirit begins a journey along te ara wairua (the spirit’s pathway) which leads them up the coast and over wind-swept terrain to the headland of Te Rerenga Wairua. Here the spirit leaps off into the two colliding seas by sliding off the root of a pohutakawa tree. The spirit travels underwater to Three Kings Island, surfacing at Ohaua to take one last breath and bid farewell before returning to the land of their ancestors.
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