Dame kiri te kanawa biography

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Here, the birth child of a native Maori man and a woman of European extraction was adopted at five weeks of age by a local couple, Tom and Nell Te Kanawa, he also a Maori and she with family ties to the British Isles. The Te Kanawas named their daughter Kiri, the Maori word for bell. She was to be their only child. The family came from modest circumstances: Tom Te Kanawa ran a truck contracting business, while his wife stayed home with Kiri.

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On one outing, she nearly drowned when a boat capsized, trapping her underneath, until her father managed to dive down and rescue her. And for almost as long as she can remember, she sang. Yet where Te Kanawa had a breezy indifference to her own voice, her mother heard something magical: the raw beauty and talent of her dulcet tones. But the journey from the languid, peaceful New Zealand coast to top billing in London and New York, and then super-stardom literally around the globe, was a long and arduous one.

Te Kanawa began her remarkable rise in the most ordinary of venues, singing at a local school. From there, she would go on to perform at weddings and funerals. The money she pocketed helped pay for her basic necessities, like clothes, as well as for her singing lessons. The schedule was brutal and the schooling, more often than not, a disaster.

Te Kanawa was routinely plucked from class in the middle of her lessons to work on her singing whenever Sister Mary was free, and as a consequence, her grades suffered.