KIRI, Music and a Maori Girl

Te Ao Hou, March 1967, Page 58

KIRI, Music and a Maori Girl by Norman Harris in association with Kiri Te Kanawa A. H. & A. W. Reed, 29s 6d reviewed by Alan Armstrong The Kiri phenomenon. What is it about this young Maori girl which has so captured the public's imagination? It is a mere three years since she first came to general notice by scoring a second in the Mobil Song Quest of 1963 at Hamilton. Since then she has featured on six gramophone records, appeared in two local films and now rates a biography. To be sure she is young, talented and good looking but many other local song contest winners have been similarly endowed without making an appreciable public impact before leaving their own country for training abroad. Part of Kiri's appeal of course is due to her Maori ancestry. She is unique as the first Maori female singer of serious music to stand at the threshold of fame and fortune overseas. (Am I perhaps being uncharitable to add that leaping on Kiri's bandwagon also gives some of the leaders in our artistic community the opportunity to salve their consciences by paying a sort of lip service to the sadly underrated Maori contribution to music and arts in New Zealand?) Another factor in Kiri's success is shrewd promotion. In this respect, A. H. & A. W. Reed have been co-pilots of, rather than passengers on, Kiri's bandwagon. Although never overstepping the bounds of good taste and a legitimate regard for Kiri's own interest, they have assiduously fostered and catered for public enthusiasm for Kiri te Kanawa with the periodic issue of records of her singing. Now they have commissioned and published this book. If some will say that a biography at this stage of Kiri's young career is pushing things just a little too far then her publishers could undoubtedly retort that they are only giving the public what it wants—which is undoubtedly true. Furthermore, in fairness to author and publisher, the book is not claimed to be a biography (although many will regard it as such). It is obviously intended rather as a study—as the success story of a young singer in the initial stage of her career. For this reason the book for the most part concentrates on events rather than character study. This results in rather a one-sided view of Kiri. Inferentially she emerges from the book as a paragon of all the virtues. We are not shown her losing her temper or disobeying Mum or falling prey to any of those little human frailties which beset lesser mortals. There is no attempt to analyse the secret of her success or of the influence which her biracialism makes to her musical development or personal temperament. The book begins mawkishly. Chapter one is irrelevant and contrived and the second chapter will lead the reader to fear that this is to be a blow-by-blow description of our heroine's life story. In fact the reader's reaction to this chapter (which deals with Kiri's early childhood) is probably best summed up by the final

sentence on page 14—‘Talk about sickly smiles.’ Fortunately author Norman Harris gets into his stride in subsequent chapters which deal with the highlights of Kiri's career interlaced with a wealth of anecdote. Norman Harris met Kiri in London and wrote the book there in close collaboration with her. Harris is best known for his sports writing including Silver Fern at Tokyo and the autobiographical Champion of Nothing in which he describes his own attempts to become a champion athlete. In fact this is his first non-sporting book. Whilst it may seem that a sports writer is ill-equipped to write of the trials and triumphs of a budding singer, Harris in fact brings a rare perception to his task. Having experienced at first hand the self-discipline and the constant striving towards a goal which is necessary for athletic success, he is able to write with insight on the similar development of one seeking artistic success. He skilfully depicts the tension and anxiety which lead up to the all-too-brief moments of climax and success and leads the reader into a feeling of emotional involvement in the hopes and aspirations of Kiri Te Kanawa as she climbs the first steps towards her goal of becoming a professional singer. For 29s 6d the reader gets a mere fifty-nine pages of text. However the book is filled out to a respectable size with a further sixty-four pages of photographs which paradoxically begin with Kiri in Trafalgar Square in March 1966 and finish eighty illustrations later with her first stage appearance as a seven year old tap dancer. Apart from a little clumsy retouching in illustrations 33 and 35 (third finger left hand!) the photographs are excellent. They illustrate the tremendous mobility of her face and expression. In hardly any one photograph does she look exactly the same as in any other. (Compare for example illustrations 24, 52, 58, 60, 70, 71, 74–I swear they must be seven different people, yet of course they are not.) I really feel for this beautiful girl from whom so much is expected. Perhaps it would be a kindness now to take the fierce glare of the spotlight off her for just a little while whilst she struggles to gain perfection in her craft. Within such a short time she has attained the recognition and acclaim for which many artists struggle a lifetime. We must not allow the rest of her career to become anticlimatic through heaping too much on her too early.