Our People: Turanga Merito

Turanga Merito loves being home in Rotorua. Photo/Stephen Parker

The first time Turanga Merito tasted fame was when he was 6 and featured on this newspaper's front page.

It wasn't for anything remotely connected with the star-studded musical career that was to come, but a big reveal on how a rainbow came between him and a try line.

"I was playing schoolboy rugby, Dad [John Merito] was the coach, he was screaming 'go son, go'. Three metres from the score line I saw this rainbow and stopped. He yelled 'I don't care about the rainbow, just keep running'. I stayed looking at it and the next day The Daily Post had this headline 'Boy stops game for rainbow'. For me, it was like wow, man, that was me."

From then on the now 33-year-old's feet have barely touched terra firma, not chasing rainbows but propelling him around the world and back again.

From starring as The Lion King's Simba in Australia and China to a raft of other shows and gigs, backing Beyonce included, he's back where he knows he belongs. That's home where he's a driving force behind the recently-opened Lakes Performing Arts Company.

His is a success story that's pure Rotorua in its genesis.

Turanga's the mokopuna of founding Howard Morrison Quartet member, Jerry Merito, the only one of his seven siblings to have inherited his koro's musicality.

In what turns into an incredibly frank chat, Turanga shares an insight into his life that hasn't always brought adulation and applause.

"At primary school I was bullied, called 'faggot', 'poofter', it was a point of low self-esteem, but by then I knew I had a voice."

He, and others, discovered it when, at 7, he won a whanau reunion talent quest.

"That moment was quite pivotal in my life, it's when I fell in love with music."

Turanga continued to enter, and win, talent quests.

As well as singing at Lakes High he won national speech competitions. Charisma church also played a major role in shaping this star-in-the making's future.

At 14 he entered the Lockwood Aria's showcase section. "I didn't want to but was told I had to." Turanga relented when he heard the prize money was $3000.

"I was terrified; Ben Makisi [opera tenor] was in the same section."

Move over Ben, Turanga's Wind Beneath My Wings "the Gladys Knight version" won. "I was like wow, if I can do this I can do anything."

Did this make him over-confident? Possibly. Turanga began to play up and was sent to Hamilton's Fraser High, he hated it.

"I promised to be good if I could get back to Lakes."

He kept his promise, by the 7th form he was Lakes' joint head prefect with Rebecca Daniels, the performing arts company's founding director.

Before leaving school an invitation came to perform in Auckland's Christmas In
The Park, reprising his A Child Is Born in Christchurch. He's regularly choreographed the show since.

Encouraged by Aunty Bea Yates (Our People, December 18, 2010) he successfully auditioned for a Maori TV show.

"It was the Maori equivalent of What Now, I hadn't spoken te reo since kohanga, Dalvanius Prime was the producer, he was very tough, when I coach [singing] now I know Dalvanius is with me."

He enrolled in Auckland University's Bachelor of Pop Music, planning to cross-credit with anthropology.

Six months into his university days Aria judge, Penny Dodds, called.

"She said you're needed for an audition, it was The Lion King, I sang Amazing Grace a capella, two weeks later I was on a plane to Sydney, suddenly I could buy any fancy food I wanted."

To quote Turanga, he worked his a**e off to earn his pay.

Initially in the ensemble playing 11 different roles, the big time swooped as it only can in theatre.

"I was about the third Simba understudy, the lead went sick, the others weren't available, I was told on Saturday morning I had to do the matinee, they said 'if you don't we'll have to refund hundreds of tickets', so no pressure."

Three years and 1100 performances in Sydney, Melbourne and China followed.

"It was a bitter–sweet experience combining Simba's personality traits with this little Maori boy from Rotorua, in the end the pressure was showing. I could have bluffed it but didn't want to, the time had come to take Simba's head off, I've never sung The Lion King in public since."

Determined to prove he was no "one trick pony" (his words) he enrolled in New York's American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA).

"The first year I loved going from Sydney's good life to student accommodation with bed bugs, working 7am to 6pm, by the second year I was horribly homesick."

Only months out from graduating he was back in Rotorua.

"But I became depressed, moved back to Melbourne."

A string of musicals followed, including playing West Side Story's murderous Chino.

"It became very dark for me having to kill someone every night, New Zealand was pulling me back."

In 2013, Dodds again pushed him into auditioning, this time as an X Factor voice coach.

"I had to go to the Salvation Army and buy a $10 blazer, I knew I really wanted that prestigious job."

X Factor judge Stan Walker invited Turanga to tour with him, a move that led to two years backing international performers, that's where Beyonce entered the frame.

He was in Thailand in the wake of a "messy" relationship break up when Te Puia's sales and marketing general manger, Kiri Atkinson Crean, summoned him home to become the artistic director for the 2016 Tiki Ahu fashion show.

Since then he's recorded Welcome Home in te reo Maori with Dave Dobbyn and pop's Maimoa.

He and now business partner, Rebecca, were teaching dance at Western Heights High when she mooted the performing arts company idea; the doors opened on July 22.

"Bex is the brains, I'm the singing teacher, everything's happened magically. I'm extremely grateful to this place [Rotorua], it's great to be back, but all I've done before has been completely worth it.

TURANGA MERITO
Born: Rotorua, 1984.
Education: To Te Ra Kohanga Reo, Sunset, Westbrook Primaries, Rotorua Intermediate, Lakes High, Fraser High Hamilton, Auckland University, AMDA, New York.
Family: Parents John and Parehuia Merito, six sisters, one brother.
Interests: "They vary, I enjoy crime drama series like CSI trying to figure out who done it." The gym. "I'm not into punishment, for me it's a treat, freedom."
On Rotorua: "Lady Jane's still sells the best ice cream in the country."
On his life: "My family's been my strength."
On his time with Beyonce: "I did the Sydney leg of her tour, it was a dream come true. I was too shy to meet her but when she walked past I felt this surreal magic."
Personal philosophy: Live each day as if it's the first not the last."

This concludes the present Our People series, it will return in 2018.