Muriwai Album
Muriwai, the new album from Ariana Tikao and Bob Bickerton is now available on Oro Records.
The name Muriwai refers to a confluence of two rivers with Bob and Ariana’s music a convergence of Māori and Celtic musical traditions through vocals, taonga pūoro and Celtic harp.
Featuring music from Ariana and Bob’s 2024 Chamber Music New Zealand Tour, the album explores a journey through time and place starting with a Kāi Tahu creation story relating to water, through to the arrival of people in Te Waipounamu, our impact on the environment, and imagined consequences of our actions.
To listen to the album, or read the full album notes with lyrics, select an option above.
Featured Tracks
Click on a video below to hear a featured track from the new album.
An excerpt of a Kāi Tahu creation story as told by Teone Taare Tikao, Ariana’s great-grandfather. Translated into te reo Māori by Paora Tibble.
Acknowledging the various atua of taonga puoro.
In this section, the time of people, we explore the impact of the arrival of people on our world.
An instrumental acknowledging the many voices of Papatūānuku and other atua associated with stone, supplying rhythms and the very foundations of the ground we stand upon.
Our emotional response. Hā can mean breath, essence, taste, sound or tone. This waiata is about focusing on our senses.
Watch the Online Album Launch
Elegiac, ethereal, and urgent, Muriwai carry the message for our times. Conduits for the instruments and voices of the atua, their work is a journey from the source towards the future we must urgently protect. This is both balm for the soul and a rousing call to action - Jacquie Boer
Biographies
Ariana Tikao
Ariana Tikao (Kāi Tahu) is a composer and performer of waiata in te reo Māori and English, as well as being an exponent of taonga puoro. She has written many waiata in the Kāi Tahu dialect and has performed extensively around Aotearoa. In 2020 the New Zeland Arts Foundation awarded her the Jillian Friedlander Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa Laureate Award.
Bob Bickerton
Bob Bickerton is a performer of both traditional Irish music and taonga puoro and has recorded with Richard Nunns, Aroha Yates-Smith as well as many others. He has performed extensively in concerts, festivals and schools around Aotearoa . Bob was appointed as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2015 New Year’s Honours list for services to music.