Bursting with song out West

Mahinarangi Tocker

The sylvan glades and surroundings of Titirangi will burst into life this weekend for the second Titirangi Festival of Music.

With acts ranging from Lucid 3 and Te Vaka to The Feelers, there is a strong local connection for many of the musicians - and there is no prouder Westie than songwriter-singer Mahinarangi Tocker, who launches the week-long event on Friday night.

Tocker, one of New Zealand's leading songwriters, has lived in West Auckland for 10 years.

"It's the first place I've ever lived where I feel totally safe at home," she says.

"There's a friendly environment, and you would be amazed at how many musicians are out here and the strong community feeling."

Much of the Friday programme will feature songs from Tocker's extraordinary The Mongrel in Me album, which started life as a presentation at the New Zealand International Arts Festival in 2004, then worked its way through the smaller festivals.

Musicians alongside her at the Titirangi War Memorial Hall will include cellist Ashley Brown, composer David Downes and guitarist James Wilkinson. "We are not all necessarily side by side either genre-wise or culturally," Tocker says, "and if I want to combine them on the same album or show, I have to work out how to present the music in a way that is comfortable for the listener."

But the rewards have been prodigious and Tocker glows with enthusiasm. "There is a wonderful feeling in sharing sounds and experiences, and you'll hear the respect that comes out of it on Friday night."

She has collaborated with cellist Ashley Brown on the Tuwhare project, in which she set the poet's Northland Heartscape for Brown and his colleagues from the New Zealand Trio.

"Ashley and I have an understanding. I will come out with an idea and talk to him about what I'm hearing. I'll say what I want from the cello, whether it's koauau sounds or breathy effects. He is theoretically trained but has a wonderful musical heart."

I am told their duet Spinning, one of the great moments on the CD, is not always the same live. "I enjoy spontaneity," Tocker says. "Things just happen and we seem to have a great sense of mutual trust on stage."

Another musician in whom she puts her full faith is composer David Downes. Tocker met him while working on Michael Parmenter's Jerusalem in 1999.

"I felt a freshness there that I didn't understand and I learned so much just watching him putting the sounds together."

James Wilkinson is Friday's guitar man and a major creative force throughout The Mongrel in Me. "He plays compositions that are clever but easy to hear.

"Clever can mean threatening, but James always manages to make the sound appeal to his listeners."

Friday will also be a family affair, when sister Mahara takes a turn, and Tocker laughingly recalls childhood days when her jazz-buff father had the family singing along with the Mills Brothers and the Southernaires.

"Mahara can still sing the whole of Goldilocks and the Three Bears jazz style that we learned from a Southernaires' album."

Tocker's openness and generosity is inspirational. One minute she is talking of Bill Evans, the next it's Led Zeppelin, or her Auckland Philharmonia collaboration with classical composer Ross Harris.

She is candid about her problems with self-confidence.

Music has always been a survival kit, from her first day of school when she wrote a song on the way to help her cope. Now her musical horizons seem limitless.

"I grew up learning traditional waiata Maori and those other songs which were basically Pakeha songs with Maori words. I tried to put them in separate boxes. Now I know it's all just music." 

 
Performance

* Who: Mahinarangi Tocker in concert
* Where and when: Titirangi War Memorial Hall, Friday 7.30pm