Kiri Te Kanawa was born in Gisborne, but when her family recognised her musical talents and love of performance they moved to Auckland to enable her to study under Dame Sister Mary Leo. In 1965 she won the Mobil Song Quest and later the Melbourne Sun Aria contest and, with the aid of a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council Scholarship, left New Zealand at the age of twenty-one to study at the Opera Study Centre in London. Kiri Te Kanawa rose to international prominence when she performed at Covent Garden, and she has since appeared in major roles in the world’s great opera houses, including the New York Metropolitan, La Scala, and Paris Opera. She achieved further recognition when she was invited to sing at the wedding of HRH Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer, which was telecast to an audience estimated at over 600 million.

Kiri Te Kanawa regularly returns to New Zealand to perform, notably in 1990 with a series of “Homecoming” concerts, and at the Millennium Concert in Gisborne which was part of a live broadcast to over 80 countries. She also recorded traditional and contemporary Màori songs which brought the voices and sounds of New Zealand to international audiences. Graceful and elegant, with a rich voice and beautifully controlled dynamic range, Kiri Te Kanawa described singing as “the reason why I was born”.