Waiata Numbers Double For National Choral Music Songwriting Competition

Winners of the sixth national choral composition competition, Compose Aotearoa, have just been announced with the number of entries in the Waiata Category doubling since last year. Wellington medical physicist Andrew Williams composed this year’s winning waiata, Miha, while Nikolai Valov, an Australian living and teaching in Oamaru, has won the Open Category with Invictus. Nikolai has also been awarded the 2026 CANZ Composer in Residence. Wellington composer and gardener Chester Nevil took out the Under 25-Years Category with The Cherubic Hymn.

Nikolai Valov’s winning work, Invictus, is a setting of William Henley’s poem, a text that Nikolai says “essentially embodies hope, resilience and even defiance in the face of adversity. Given the world we’re living in, I find a text like this is increasingly relevant, despite it being almost 150 years old”. Nikolai grew up in Western Australia where he learnt piano from Inna Fursa, who remains a mentor. He moved to the US with his family when he was 18 and attended University of Oregon. Upon graduating, Nikolai taught music and ESOL in Japan for five years where he discovered his love of teaching. He returned to the US and worked as a school choir director while studying for a Master of Arts in Teaching. Nikolai has recently moved to Aotearoa New Zealand and started teaching music at Waitaki Boys’ High School in Oamaru.

“It was such a surprise to win, especially after settling in Aotearoa so recently. I’ve only just started trying my hand at choral composition, so this encourages me to do more,” says Nikolai Valov. “I faced burn-out in my undergraduate years and mostly gave up on composing. It was only when I started directing a school choir in 2023 that I thought maybe it was time to give this composing thing another shot. And I’m very glad I did!”

The winner of the Waiata Category is Andrew Williams with Miha, which means Māori mass. Andrew knows of only one other miha – Takerei Komene’s setting for choir and organ – but thinks there must be hundreds, if not thousands, of English and Latin settings: “We need more in Te Reo!” says Andrew. Miha is Andrew’s fourth composition, and the impetus for it was to support “the taonga that is te reo Māori”.

Andrew is a Welsh-born, Wellington-based, radiation oncology medical physicist; he’s involved in the behind-the-scenes support for radiation therapy cancer treatments. Outside of work, Andrew plays bassoon in the Wellington Regional Hospital’s orchestra and the Wellington City Concert Band. He is also a keen amateur organist and has a four-manual organ console in his front room. Originally a pipe organ console, Andrew spent four months converting it to a digital pipe organ. Andrew sings tenor in the Wellington Cathedral of St Paul Choir and recently also joined the Doubtful Sounds choir. He grew up in Wales in the 1970s speaking English-only – the result of many years of suppression of the Welsh language. Welsh was his grandmother’s first language, and he felt he’d missed out on an important part of his heritage not speaking the language. Andrew says Welsh is now on the road to recovery thanks to legislation associated with the Welsh Language Act.

“I can’t do anything about recent government policy in New Zealand, but I can write music that celebrates te reo Māori and hope it will be sung in cathedrals across Aotearoa,” says Andrew Williams. “I'm absolutely thrilled to have won the waiata category of Compose Aotearoa!”

Wellington’s Chester Nevil won the Under 25-Years Category. A composer and instrumentalist, Chester is finishing his undergraduate studies in composition at the New Zealand School of Music, Victoria University of Wellington. Chester says his piece, The Cherubic Hymn, is a “meditative, prayerful, and faithful expression of Aotearoa’s reception and integration of Orthodox Christian worship … this work attempts to synthesise various forms and styles of modern Orthodox liturgical worship with Aotearoa’s unique choral aesthetic and style”. Chester’s worked with choirs before and recently another of his works, Claribel (for cello, soprano and mixed chorus), premiered at the 2025 NZSM Lilburn Trust Composer Competition Finals concert. He says his musical journey began with the drums at the age of 10, and he’s been playing ever since, performing with groups from the age of 13. A gardener by trade, Chester finds music and gardens both compatible and complementary.

Since 2020, Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand has invited composers across the country – from the freshest to our most esteemed – to create a new work for a mixed four-part choir (up to 60 people), in a capella or accompanied by up to three instruments.

“The competition is designed to stimulate the creation of new and diverse choral music for Aotearoa. It’s a rewarding pathway, not only for innovative young composers but also experienced writers who may not have composed for choirs before,” says Ange Kalogeropoulos, Compose Aotearoa 2025 Project Manager and Choirs Aotearoa NZ Choir Manager (NZSSC), “I was particularly delighted to see one of our young singers, Benjamin Viljoen from the 2025-26 NZ Secondary Students' Choir, highly commended in the waiata category for his composition, Te Orokohanga”.

All three main winners take home $2000 each and become SOUNZ Composers. Their compositions will be workshopped at the end of November.

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