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Richard Nunns & Hirini Melbourne
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Richard Nunns & Hirini Melbourne · Richard Nunns and Hirini Melbourne were two New Zealand musicians who together brought back a nearly vanished tradition: the music of the taonga pūoro, the traditional Māori instruments. Nunns was born in 1945 in Napier, a Pākehā of Scandinavian descent in a musical family. In his younger years he was a jazz musician and worked as a teacher. When he helped build a marae in the Waikato, his interest in Māori culture grew. Melbourne, born in 1949, was himself Māori and died in 2003.
Music and breakthrough
Both researched instruments that had not been played for well over a century, because their use had disappeared in School of Rock of the twentieth century. Many instruments still lay in museums, but nobody knew any more how to play them. The pair are regarded as the founders of the revival of this part of Māori culture. After Melbourne's death Nunns was regarded as the foremost expert on these instruments in the world. He collected more than seventy of them, flutes and percussion instruments, and died in 2021.
Influence
The sound of this music is soft, breathy and close to nature. Flutes, voices and other wind and percussion instruments sound without the familiar scales of Western music. Nunns later worked with very diverse musicians, from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and jazz players to Salmonella Dub, and contributed to the soundtracks of The Lord of the Rings and Whale Rider. In 2009 Nunns and Melbourne were inducted together into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame.
Listening
Hau · Richard Nunns & Hirini Melbourne, 1990