Around 300 artists will perform across 35 venues in the capital this week, as the five-day Wellington Jazz Festival kicks off today. By: Sophie Trigger
Wellington-based performer Ruby Solly (Kāi Tahu, Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe) has been coming to the festival since she was a teenager, and said it had the power to transport you anywhere in the world.
“It really feels like you could be anywhere, you could be somewhere in Europe or somewhere in America during those five days,” she said.
“It’s amazing to just be able to walk into any venue during the Jazz festival and see someone you know and hear them play.”
Composer, poet, cellist and taonga pūoro practitioner Ruby Solly is performing with her band Tararua at one of Saturday’s headline shows, with a work commissioned by the festival.
“I’ve composed a suite of pieces called Te Karanga o ngā Whetū, which is about different stars in Te Reo Māori,” she said.
“Using science we send pictures up into the sky and look at the pictures we get back once they hit the stars to see how far away they are.”
“So using that information as well as our own science in Te Reo Māori and our own pūrākau around the stories of different stars, and how they relate to the elements and us as people in our life journey.”
The rest of Tararua included taonga pūoro practitioners Alistair Fraser and Ariana Tikao, double bassist Phil Boniface, with guests Rosie Langabeer on piano, Riki Gooch on drums and Gerard Crewdson on trombone and euphonium.
Solly said writing for taonga pūoro – traditional Māori instruments – and for people she was close to had been a “beautiful” experience.
“It’s a real privilege to write, not just for an instrument but for specific people, and that’s something that often comes in with taonga puoro,” she said.
“Every instrument is different, everyone brings a different sort of range, and ability and character to it.
“It’s been really great to write for people that I really love and respect and who are really close friends.”
As well as composing and performing music, Solly also worked as a music therapist with high school students with special needs.
“There’s so many overlaps between music and Te Ao Māori, a lot of our music is used in ritual, and not just performance but ritual community and family contexts,” she said.
“Music therapy has a lot of that language and a lot of those ideas as well … it’s really great to be able to practice my culture as well as my craft in that respect.”
“It’s almost providing people with another language to express what can’t always be expressed easily with words.”
Solly was also looking forward to performing in the 8am session of Sun Song suites with Umar Zakaria on Friday.
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