Haunting sounds of love and war (NZ)

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?c_id=252&objectid=10465155

Haunting sounds of love and war
5:00AM Saturday September 22, 2007
By Juliet Rowan


Horomona Horo will play the traditional pukaea and the koauau to commemorate
the Battle of Passchendaele.

Before the bugle sounds at the 90th commemorations of the Battle of
Passchendaele next month, a unique sound will be heard - traditional Maori
instruments of love and war.

Rotorua musician Horomona Horo left this week for Belgium, where he will
play taonga puoro (traditional instruments) at a dawn ceremony commemorating
the bloodiest battle in New Zealand history.

The 29-year-old will play the pukaea, a trumpet-like instrument of war, and
the koauau, a flute-like instrument of love, to remember the 2800 soldiers
who were killed or wounded on October 12, 1917 on the Flemish battlefield.

A thousand-man haka is also to be performed.

The casualties on that single day at Passchendaele surpassed the 2721 lives
lost in the eight-month campaign at Gallipoli two years earlier.

Mr Horo will play at two other dawn ceremonies commemorating battles fought
by New Zealand and other Commonwealth soldiers in the bleak Passchendaele
campaign.

Horo's instruments will ring out before the bugle player sounds the Last
Post and after a minute of silence is held for fallen soldiers.

"It's a really humbling privilege to be able to be that first sound, and
especially that sound coming all the way from New Zealand," he said.



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