Transcript
IGELESE ETE: The education system here doesn't allow music to be studied and theory to be studied in secondary school so when they come to me they're still raw in the theoretical side but very rich in their natural singing voice so it's al ot of work to get them to that stage. you don't get lessons within the schools unless it's an extracurricular activity of course for the school system at the moment and something I do want to change.
DANIELA MAOATE-COX: How easy is that to change? Is that a lot of work?
IE: It would be a lot of work, you're trying to get all your stakeholders on side but I think this recording would have opened a few eyes in the education system to the possibilities if we have music as a part of the curriculum where you can study and have exams for then it's something you can definitely lift to another level.
DM-C: There's a lot of musical talent in the Pacific having the aural skills there already but having the written skills as well would help to translate that into a career
IE: Absolutely and these are some of the skills that I developed here as part of the training for Pasifika voices and I take in 12 top singers I audition every year and we have theory lessons, and vocal classes, and traditional and contemporary and it really builds their skill levels, when you come across notation reading it makes it a lot quicker and with the natural talent with the aural skills it gives it another level and brings it out.
DM-C: Did you have much input into the composition of the songs at all?
IE: Probably more from a stylistic perspective, I've been dialoguing with Mark Mancina who wrote the score and I sort of advised him what harmonic structures and sound he should look at but the sound he created when we sung them was very similar to what I advised so I can't take the credit but I was advising and consulting him.
DM-C: Can you describe what makes it sound more Pacific than the score that you originally heard that didn't quite fit with your idea?
IE: The Pacific has certain tonalities and harmonic structures that Samoans or Cook Islanders relate to so basically I was advising Mark to create around that harmonic structure and also the vocal sounds of the Pacific there's a certain tone colour to it that makes it quite distinctive and I thought it would be great to capture that from the Pacific singers.
DM-C: And of course the response from the producers and director has been impressed by how much power is behind the voices of the choir considering there's only 20 people.
IE: Yeah there was overall from what they had heard, the first song they heard was a Fijian chant and it's very much sung in full voice and it's almost like a so they probably would have been surprised it came from 20 which sounded like probably 100 people at the end because we were in a very reverbing space as well so they thoroughly enjoyed it, they were really impressed.
