Posthumous award for great composer, Queen Salote Tupou III [1]
Thursday, May 23, 2019 - 13:14. Updated on Thursday, May 23, 2019 - 13:21.
A Lifetime Achievement Award will be posthumously presented to Polynesia’s great composer, the late Queen Sālote Tupou lll, at tonight’s Pacific Music Awards to be held at the Sir Woolf Fisher Arena Vodafone Events Centre, in Manukau City, New Zealand.
The Pacific Music Awards Trust announced that the Manukau Institute of Technology Lifetime Achievement Award will be received by a grandchild of Queen Sālote, Princess ‘Ofeina ‘e he Langi Fakafānua at the 15th Pacific Music Awards event.
Queen Sālote who reigned for over 47 years from 1918 to 1965 composed more than one hundred songs, lullabies, recitals, and laments, and most notably Tonga's great dances the Lakalaka and Mā‘ulu‘ulu.
“The Pacific Music Awards acknowledges Her Majesty Queen Sālote's huge contribution to the preservation and creative use of the Tongan language and recognises her as a celebrated writer of poetry and song,” the announcement stated. The queen “possessed unrivalled knowledge of genealogies, traditions of Tongan customs and a strong sense of duty and love for her people of Tonga, which also meant strong connections and responsibilities to the South Pacific region.”
“Her compositions of Tongan music continue to inspire a new generation, now aware of our rich past and to our shared futures.”
Queen Sālote’s music continues to be played by string bands and well-known artists in many places, and her legacy lives on through her music and poetry.
There will be a special tribute performance to the late Queen Sālote tonight, which is a collaboration by Rewaken, John Pulu, Tongan Creatives and Lomipeau Aotearoa, alongside live music from Adeaze, Poetik Melodownz, Razé, Tree, Punialava’a, Jaro Local and Tomorrow People.
The Pacific Music Awards debuted at Pasifika Festival in March 2005.The awards committee formed a Charitable Trust to organise and host the awards, to acknowledge the success of Pacific artists, celebrate and promote excellence in Pacific music and encourage young Pacific musicians to aspire to a higher level of achievement.
Book
The compositions of Queen Sālote were translated by Dr Melenaite Taumoefolau of the University of Auckland and published by Vava‘u Press in 2004. The 448 pages book Songs & Poems of Queen Sālote, in Tongan and English, included essays by Princess Nanasipau‘u Tuku‘aho (now Queen Nanasipau‘u), the late Dr Elizabeth Wood-Ellem and Dr Adrienne L. Kaeppler. “Tonga’s rich heritage captured in sung poetry and dance, is a touchstone for all Tongans who feel that their history and culture should be perpetuated,” wrote the book's Presenters.
Vava‘u Press in Tonga announced this week that a small-run reprint of the book is currently at press and will be published in Tonga in September.