TVNZ’s Indira Stewart returns to stage in Mana Moana 17 years after NZ Idol

Indira Stewart will sing first soprano in Mana Moana at Spark Arena on November 24. Photo / TVNZ

Indira Stewart has many strings to her bow. The TVNZ reporter and former Breakfast presenter is also a mother, classically trained musician, champion piano accordion player and New Zealand Idol contestant.

Her latest gig is singing first soprano in Mana Moana at Spark Arena on November 24. The show brings together the NZ Symphony Orchestra and Wellington’s 80-strong Signature Choir to showcase traditional and contemporary music from Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, the Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau.

The 38-year-old smiles as she explains how she came to be part of the Mana Moana line-up in Tāmaki Makaurau after last year’s one-off, sold-out show in Wellington.

“I went down to do a story for Breakfast, because it was the first event of its kind. I flew down with my producer, who is a good friend of mine. We were at rehearsal, and even though there was a language barrier for her, we were looking at each other with tears streaming down our cheeks because it was so beautiful.

“I grew up in a musical family with a musical background, but I’d never seen that kind of cultural exchange in terms of our [Pasifika] stories in our languages, with Western European instruments and orchestration. I did the interviews and said to the music director Helen [Tupai], ‘If you ever come to Auckland, holler at your girl. I would love to join the choir, even if it’s doing bum jobs. I would just love to be a part of the experience that was so special to witness’,” she recalls.

Stewart says that after the Wellington concert, she saw social media posts with aunties, uncles and politicians dancing in the aisles. “I just thought it was magic. I was stoked when they came up to Auckland. I don’t have time for a lot of things, and I don’t even know if I have time for this choir! Like many other women in our industry, I’m a working mum. But I love it so much. I’m so glad I joined it.”

Former Breakfast presenter Stewart is also a classically trained musician, champion piano accordion player and former NZ Idol contestant. Hair, makeup and photography / Lisa Matson

Stewart is still close to broadcaster John Campbell, who left Breakfast in April 2022, followed by Stewart in January this year.

“He actually sits next to me at work, so we’re desk buddies. I can’t speak highly enough of the influence he’s had on my career. Not just as a mentor, but as an older brother and a friend. He’s always giving me encouraging pep talks and believing in me. He’s just such a gift in my life and such a wonderful man.

“The other day he started buying tickets for Mana Moana at the office, doing it in front of me. And he said to me, ‘Oh, look I’m buying tickets. You’d better be good, you bastard!’.” He always jokes around with me like that. It’s awesome to have support not just for my journalism, but he’s also coming to the concert.”

Stewart was born in Tonga to her Tongan music-teacher dad ‘Aisea Moala and Fijian mum Elisiva. Her family moved to Auckland when Stewart was a toddler and she became a New Zealand citizen in March this year, after more than 30 years in New Zealand.

Growing up, she played the flute, sang in church and with her older sister Lesieli, now 40, played piano accordion. The sisters were South Pacific champions in the 90s.

“We were some of the very few brown kids competing. There were literally maybe five of us in the New Zealand Accordion Association.

“Our dad wanted something that was portable enough to take to Tonga to play for our family, and that didn’t need to be plugged in for electricity, because some villages were so remote they didn’t have electricity. The accordion really took us places and helped me get into my degree and do well with music classically.”

Stewart was in her second year of studying for a Bachelor of Music and Composition when she entered New Zealand Idol in 2006. “I was a broke uni student, as we all were. They had these ads out for New Zealand Idol. The prize was $50,000 and a brand-new car. I was like, ‘I’m going to audition’. I didn’t really think it would go anywhere. I never told my family that I was going to do the audition. I think they would have discouraged me because I was in the middle of my degree, and they just wanted me to get a qualification.

“I went to all the auditions by myself, which I think now is weird because there were thousands of people there. And then I got into the top 10 and once you got into the top 10 you had to move into the Idol house. I still lived with my parents, who were very strict. They were church ministers and, even at 21, there was no way you’re going flatting or anything like that.”

Stewart met her husband, chef Hayden Stewart, on a plane to Australia in 2014. Hair, makeup and photography / Lisa Matson

Stewart had to tell them she was leaving, and it could be three or four months before she came home.

“They were very, very shocked. But I had got that far so they let me go. I went all the way to the final and was runner-up. That was such a crazy experience. I can’t spill the tea on that experience, but it was so fun. We lived in a 12-bedroom house in Greenhithe.”

The New Zealand Idol winner that year was Matthew Saunoa, who is now in jail after pleading guilty to aggravated grievous bodily harm, burglary and motor vehicle offences after a police officer was injured in a hit-and-run incident.

In the Idol auditions, Stewart met her ex-husband, who made it as far as the top 50. “Because of my very strict kind of upbringing I’d never really dated or anything like that, so it was kind of like the first person I met, I thought, ‘Oh, I’m in love’. I got married young and got divorced very quickly, too. It was just a really difficult type of marriage.”

Still in her early 20s, Stewart had to walk away from the relationship as a solo mum with two children under 2 and figure out how to rebuild her life and take care of her kids.

“I didn’t think I could go back to my music degree because I needed to find a way to provide for my children. There aren’t many opportunities in New Zealand in classical music as a composer, but I did think I enjoyed TV. I thought I’d go to AUT and study communications and maybe major in video production. Journalism just happened to be my strongest paper. After my divorce, I moved to Australia to be with my parents and was lucky enough to get an internship at the ABC in Melbourne, and the rest is history. I just fell in love with storytelling.”

Stewart also fell in love with her husband, head chef Hayden Stewart, 38, after sitting next to him on a plane flying to Australia in 2014. They were friends for a year before getting into a relationship and marrying in 2016.

Oddly enough, they were already friends on Facebook when they met. “We had one mutual friend who went to my church at the time. Hayden wasn’t a churchgoer then. He added me as a friend on Facebook after I had commented on our mutual friend’s profile or something. But to this day, he doesn’t remember adding me. In the next few weeks, I just kind of stalked his page out of curiosity. I was just having an innocent perve, thinking ‘You’re never going to meet this person’. My friends used to mock me because one of them caught me and started calling me ‘Mrs Stewart’. And then I hopped on the plane and there he was, so I had to tap him on the shoulder!”

The couple now live with their blended family, teenagers Jedeiah, Iszak and Caysha, and Noomi, who’s 6.

Stewart describes being part of Mana Moana as “a passion and a love project”. Her involvement in the show is part of her wider commitment to storytelling and representing her community.

“As a Pacific person in our industry, you feel a responsibility to sometimes correct some of the narratives that have been around for a very long time, but also to be able to build those trusting relationships with people so they can share in a way they know they will be culturally respected and safe. But equally, you also feel that obligation to continue to hold your own community to account. Sometimes you go against the cultural grain of what you’ve been taught. As much as I love my own culture, I’ve still got to be impartial in my own reporting. Those skills are very much learned over time. But I have loved making sure our stories get told, whether it’s by me or others. I’ve loved seeing [mainstream media] open up in terms of learning about other communities, not just Pacific, but our other ethnic minority communities. All of that is really important and meaningful.”

See Mana Moana at Spark Arena on Friday, November 24. Tickets are available from livenation.co.nz.