Sunday 27 July 2025, 7.30pm
Ariana Tikao is a renowned practitioner and composer of taonga puoro, Māori traditional instruments. She is a New Zealand Arts Laureate who has gained recognition as a soloist with Aotearoa's principal orchestras and chamber groups such as Stroma and the New Zealand String Quartet. Her arts practice is rooted in her South Island Māori identity, with a palpable connection to place, and ancestral narratives. Ariana’s live performances move between realms, beyond time, and enable audiences to feel like they are being “bundled up in a big feather cloak and transported to another world”.
Ariana will perform a programme of vocal and taonga puoro music, both solo, and accompanied by members of the London-based Rothko Collective, including creative director and violist Dominic Stokes. They will perform some new works composed by Karl Sölve Steven (NZ/Sweden), as well as music by Luka Venter, Muriwai (Ariana Tikao and Bob Bickerton), multi-media works by Good Company Arts, and some improvisations.
"Tikao’s vocals are an instant standout: equal parts soulful and stirring (‘Huriawa’, ‘Whakamihia’), as the music navigates a Kāi Tahu creation story before moving into the present; journeying themes of environmentalism and the consequences of humans’ impact on our climate and natural surroundings. It is hard not to be completely taken by the music of Muriwai. It is haunting and ethereal (‘Ngahere’, ‘Auroko’), while being delivered with a dual sense of poignancy and urgency woven throughout". (Sosefina Fuamoli, review of Muriwai album, Songlines, May 2025)
Ariana Tikao started performing in 1993 with the folk group Pounamu; has released three solo albums: Whaea (2002), Tuia (2008), and From Dust to Light (2012); and has been involved with many collaborative projects, including art music quartet Tararua, and duo Muriwai. She also works in experimental music in gallery spaces and site specific locations, collaborating and improvising with various artists particularly in the Christchurch and Wellington music scenes.
Ariana has been mentored by key members of Haumanu, a group who worked over decades to revive the voices of taonga puoro after colonisation all but rendered them mute. She was a featured singer in John Psathas’s epic international collaboration ‘No Man’s Land’ in 2016. In 2021 Ariana performed taonga puoro and sang with Māori thrash metal band Alien Weaponry and the NZSO, and again with the NZSO in the ‘Ngā Hihi o Matariki’ symphony that she also collaborated on with composer Gareth Farr, and singer Mere Boynton.
Last year Ariana expanded her horizons with several international projects, including a collaboration with Austrian bass clarinet player Anna Koch, performing in New Zealand festivals and in Vienna; she also presented a new repertoire for viola and taonga puoro with Sophia Acheson at the 49th International Viola Congress in Brazil; and began a creative fellowship at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, UK.
Ariana’s music has featured on television, film, theatre, dance, and in online videos. Whatever the setting, Ariana always brings artistic integrity, and what has been described as “depth and dignity,” making her a sought-after talent and collaborator. She is also a published writer and poet.
