A tale of two choirs: 'It's a little bit of what the world needs right now'

Kaitāia Community Voices and the Young People's Chorus of New York City are from two very different parts of the world. But they find common ground through music.

Choir Games, directed by award-winning documentary filmmaker Leanne Pooley, follows the fortunes of the two choirs over four episodes.

Pooley’s interest in the subject was piqued when she heard Auckland was to host the World Choir Games in 2024.

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Intrigued, she visited the Korean Games to find out more about what Auckland could expect.

She was “blown away,” she tells RNZ’s Saturday Morning.

She decided to make the doco, and realised whilst the music caused her to cry, “every day for reasons I didn't even understand just listening to this beautiful music,” it was about something bigger.

“The story was about that coming together as much as it was about the music.”

The documentary maker’s goal was to tell human stories, she says.

“In a way, the World Choir Games was a device around which I could weave these people's stories.”

The singers from Kaitāia and New York had more in common than first thought, she says.

Not least their charismatic choir masters, Dr Opeloge Ah Sam and Francisco J. Núñez respectively.

“I can cry when I talk about the role that Ope played in the lives of the young people up there, and how he's inspired them, and in many cases, given them a purpose in life that maybe keeps them away from some of the more negative influences that might be around them.

“Similarly, Francisco, who is literally the busiest human being I've ever encountered, still makes time to sit with kids he's worried about and check in on them and make sure they're okay,” Pooley says.

RNZ’s Three to Seven spoke with Núñez, and discovered the musician's dedication to choral music was in part his response to a tough upbringing in New York City as a child of two migrants: one from Haiti, the other from the Dominican Republic.

A child prodigy on the piano, he started the Young People's Chorus of New York in 1988 to bring together young people from different backgrounds.

While the music brings them in, broader skills are learned by stealth, he told host Bryan Crump.

“Once they get here, they think they're here because they're going to sing the very best music at the very best places around the world.

“But secretly, we're helping them understand what it's like to be in a society that brings so many different kinds of people together, we help them to maneuver through society in a way that when they grow up, they're very comfortable being around people who are different than they are,” Núñez says.

The YPC loved visiting New Zealand and meeting their choral colleagues in Kaitāia, he says. For many of the New York contingent it was their first time on a plane.

“We got along perfectly, as though we knew each other for years. That's the beauty of music.”

For Pooley it was a chance to document something more uplifting than the darker subjects she has trained her lens on in the past.

“On the whole it's joyful, and it was just so nice working on something that was basically joyful… it's a little bit of what the world needs right now, a little bit of coming together.”

Choir Games is available on Neon now and Sky Open – Sundays 7.30pm. Performances from the 2024 World Choir Games will be broadcast on RNZ Concert weekly from 8pm, Tuesday 27 May.