The CEO and creative director at Wētā Workshop, Sir Richard Taylor, and his team have the honour of designing the Tūī award for the 2021 Aotearoa Music Awards and have decided on a unique take on the native bird from which it draws its name. Joined by Dick Frizzell (2018) and Boh Runga (2019), Sir Richard’s take on the award was inspired by both the beauty of the tūī and the flora and fauna native to Aotearoa.
This year’s winners at the Aotearoa Music Awards will be bringing home an interweaving helix design with a slightly exaggerated twisting body of a tūī that holds a G clef at its foot. According to Sir Richard, the design of the Tūī represents ‘the weaving together of musical inspiration to make a song or composition’ through the depiction of the mundane act of a perched tūī reaching around it to feed on some kowhai flowers in a majestic way.
Wētā Workshop was picked for this responsibility to acknowledge their contributions to New Zealand’s creative industries. Known for their work on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies and most recently their Unleashed experience at Sky City in Auckland, Wētā Workshop has worked on many local and international films, TV shows and location-based experiences.
Sir Richard has a deep appreciation of the integral role music plays in the art of storytelling and finds experimenting with music uplifting, making Wētā Workshop’s award design and the meaning behind it the perfect accompaniment to the award ceremony airing on Friday, December 17.—Riveka Thevendran
At Wētā Workshop
At Metco Engineering
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