Hirini Melbourne

Hirini Melbourne, ONZM, was a leading exponent of taonga pūoro (traditional Māori musical instruments). He travelled to marae across Aotearoa, learning, playing and sharing what he knew about various instruments. Melbourne was also on hand at a number of key moments in Māori screen history. He composed and performed music for Mauri, Merata Mita's only dramatic feature, and for Eel, an episode of pioneering Māori anthology series E Tipu e Rea. In 2003 he and Clive Cockburn composed the soundtrack for the first feature made entirely in te reo: Don Selwyn's The Māori Merchant of Venice. Melbourne died on 6 January 2003.

The Māori did not compose just for the sake of it, but for a specific reason. If you walked along whistling it was said you had a ghostly companion — a spirit travelling along beside you. If you were on the ocean and you began whistling, you'd be asked if you were trying to whistle up the wind . . . You needed to have a reason for singing. Hirini Melbourne, in Sarah Shieff's 2002 book Talking Music: Conversations with New Zealand Musicians