‘First To See The Sun’ - an original song for Songroker’s

‘Project Sunrise - Te Whitinga o te Rā’

Album: Music From Tomorrow Morning

Supported by Creative New Zealand

In July 2020, Songbroker received support from Creative New Zealand to commission 28 of their Aotearoa New Zealand Songwriters & Composers to write, record and mix a new musical work (song or instrumental piece) in a 2 week challenge: Project Sunrise - Te Whitinga o te Rā. The brief: “Aotearoa New Zealand is the first country in the world to see the sunrise and we are going to compile a body of musical work which will acknowledge this… Write something that is the perfect expression of how it feels to be a creative artist making music in the best place in the world right now…fresh, inspirational, and above all, uplifting…Upbeat, rhythmic, moving, changing, telling a musical story in an onomatopoeic way.” ‘First To See The Sun’ is my response to the challenge, featuring on the resulting project album: ‘Music From Tomorrow Morning’ now out on Spotify. Artists were asked to take photos of sunrises and video diaries of the creative journey, which feature as a part of the project’s website: visit www.projectsunrise.work to learn more about my journey writing the song, and to listen to the work of the other artists involved. 

Massive thanks to Songbroker and to Creative New Zealand for this amazing opportunity, to Orange Studio for your support, to Engineer Thom O’Connor for your late night studio sessions, to Isaac Smart for your incredible time-lapse videos and to Emma Smart for your amazing video editing skills, Kia ora to Te Mihinga Komene for your kind advice.