Classic Kiwi talent put on great show

THE HARD ROAD: Tama Waipara, Julia Deans (centre) and Annie Crummer. Photo/supplied

Winning an audition with the Manhattan School of Music felt like "winning the lottery", Tama Waipara says, but better - and worse - was still to come.

The young man from Opotiki, who had played and won awards with Whakatane High School bands at the National Jazz Festival in Tauranga, beat 250 others to win a scholarship into the masters programme for classical clarinet.

"It was so encouraging to be validated by one of the world's top institutions and I fell in love with New York and connected with my teachers who were so liberated in their approach," Waipara says.

"Charles Neidich taught me in 10 minutes how to solve the problems of a lifetime."
But a fusebox falling from a building left Waipara with a head injury that took away his ability to play the clarinet.

"My immediate fear was that I would lose my scholarship and so couldn't live there any more," he says.

"It took months of recovery. But New York is such a rich setting for creative exploration that it was the natural thing to find something else to do."

He began to develop a long-held interest in singing.

"I'd often been criticised in New Zealand for having too great a spread of focus, but in New York my freedom of expression was encouraged," says Waipara, a producer and programme manager for the Auckland Arts Festival.

He graduated with his clarinet degree and likes to play it on his albums "subtly, in the background" and will use it during The Hard Road, a show he describes as "a snapshot" of the performers' influences.

"You'll hear music by Talking Heads and Kate Bush - Julia Deans and I are children of the 1980s, while Annie Crummer was one of the first Pasifika women to make it in music.

"There's a lot of depth and experience and we have a lot of fun. None of us can lay claim to great adversity but we're all positive people who laugh at the unlucky things that happen to us ... and channel it into song."

the fine print
What: The Hard Road
Where: Pacific Crystal Palace
When: Sunday, October 25 at 8.30pm.
Tickets: Tauranga Arts Festival Tickets from Baycourt or ticketek.co.nz. See the full festival programme at www.taurangafestival.co.nz