Kāi Tahu taonga pūoro artists Ariana Tikao and Ruby Solly played together with percussionist Ensai August a few years ago, in Wellington-based taonga pūoro orchestra 'Te Āteanui'. Ruby and Ariana have played together for many years in art music quartet Tararua (with Al Fraser and Phil Boniface), and more recently in Good Company Arts' hybrid digital/live Pepe & Pōtaka Nautilus performance in Dunedin's Glenroy Auditorium to rave reviews. Seth Boy is a double bassist and composer who's led numerous jazz and improvising music groups in Pōneke, and Ensai is a member of some of Wellington's most dynamic acts including Mā and the Fly Hunnies. This is the first time they have all come together as a collective to improvise, and sonically explore, called tito ōhia in te reo Māori.
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Ruby Solly (Waitaha, Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe) is a musician, taonga pūoro practitioner, and writer living in Pōneke. She has played with musicians such as Yo-yo Ma, Whirimako Black, and Marlon Williams, as well as composed for small group and orchestra such as the Auckland Philharmonia. Ruby is currently working on a book exploring the use of taonga pūoro in hauora, which was the focus of her PhD in Public Health.
https://rubysolly.bandcamp.com/album/p-neke
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Ariana Tikao (she/her/ia) is a practitioner and composer of taonga pūoro, singer, and writer based in Ōtautahi. She is a New Zealand Arts Laureate who has gained recognition as a soloist with Aotearoa's principal orchestras and chamber groups. Her arts practice is rooted in her Kāi Tahu identity, with a palpable connection to place, and ancestral narratives.
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Seth Boy is a double bassist and composer and has been based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara for the last eight years, working as a sideman and bandleader of numerous jazz and improvising music groups in the city as well as being involved in many cross-disciplinary projects. Born in the Philippines and raised in Pukekohe, Boy's composing and arranging sensibility draws from the starkly different perspectives of the spaces in which he's grown up and grown.
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Ensai August (they/them, Pākehā) is a multi-instrumentalist based in Te Whanganui a Tara. They are a talented musician who plays percussion in neo-soul group Mā and The Fly Hunnies, and High Ambition.
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Special thanks to Creative New Zealand for supporting Pyramid Club's programme
