The idea of the New Zealand Songbook He Iere Waiata is to make available a free online resource for all people who want to sing songs and waiata from New Zealand or being important to people living in New Zealand.

We started our journey for this songbook when the Artistic Director Dr. Karen Grylls of our national choirs at Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand Trust (you may have heard of the New Zealand Youth Choir, New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir , Aotearoa NZ Academy Choir and Voices New Zealand, if not check them out!!) said in a meeting, “we are a nation of many singers, but we don’t really have a songbook that holds the songs that unite us and are important to our identity that we can just pull out whenever we want to sing together.”

So here it is! A set of resources that help you to tackle a new song, know-how tips how to warm up your voice, and put all that online here in this digital songbook.