Pepe Becker - soprano, director, composer, teacher

PEPE BECKER - SOPRANO

Pepe Becker (nee Ward-Smythe) began her musical training in Nelson: as a chorister in the Nelson Cathedral Choir (as one of four girls selected by Don McIver in 1980 to sing with the boy trebles in the main choir - a first in the history of the Anglican cathedral choir tradition), playing oboe and piano, and singing/playing in local choirs and orchestras. She completed a Bachelor of Music degree at Victoria University of Wellington in 1987, majoring in Composition. Since then, she has been a freelance professional musician, has had three children and maintains a busy schedule teaching and performing throughout New Zealand and abroad.                       

In New Zealand Pepe has performed as soprano soloist alongside internationally acclaimed Early Music singers Emma Kirkby, Richard Wistreich and Andreas Scholl; given concerts for the NZ International Festival of the Arts; toured for the NZ Music Federation / Chamber Music New Zealand, and toured the South Island with Tomas Hurnik’s Southern Baroque ensemble of early music specialists from Hungary, Czech Republic and NZ.

She has also appeared as a soloist with most NZ choirs, including Auckland Choral; Musica Sacra; Bach Musica; Palmerston North Choral Society; Hamilton Civic Choir; Rotorua District Choir; Orpheus Choir; Bach Choir of Wellington; Cantoris and The Tudor Consort (of which she was a founding member in 1986), and with instrumental groups such as Orchestra Wellington; Kowhai Baroque, NZ Barok, Age of Discovery, Southern Baroque (early music); Stroma (contemporary music) and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

In 1991 Pepe was awarded a QEII Arts Council grant assisting her to study singing for one year with Jessica Cash in London. In 1992 she moved to The Netherlands, where she studied Baroque Singing at The Hague’s Koninklijk Conservatorium. Whilst in Europe, she performed professionally in Ireland, Britain and Holland, with such groups as the BBC Daily Service Choir, the Utrechts Barok Consort and the Nederlandse Bachvereniging.

Pepe returned to New Zealand in 1993, and in 1994 founded the Wellington-based vocal consort Baroque Voices, which she sings in and directs. In 1999 she became a member of Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir (directed by Dr Karen Grylls), in which she was a core singer for almost every concert 1999-2021. During these years she performed on all five international tours (to Singapore, 2001; Germany, 2005; Argentina, 2011; Australia, 2014 and UK/Germany/France/Spain, 2018) and all but one of the many national tours; she features on every CD recording the choir has made to date (2025), and still enjoys singing with Voices for various workshops, recordings and larger-scale concerts.

As a soprano soloist in major Baroque and Classical works such as Oratorio and Opera, Pepe’s performance repertoire includes: Bach’s “St Matthew Passion”, “St John Passion”, “Magnificat”, “Christmas Oratorio”, “Mass in B Minor” and several Cantatas; Handel’s “Messiah”, “Judas Maccabeus” and “Samson”; Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas”; Blow’s “Venus and Adonis”; Pergolesi’s “La Serva Padrona”; Haydn’s “The Creation”, “The Seasons” and various Masses; Mozart’s “Requiem”; Vivaldi’s “Gloria” and Monteverdi’s “Vespro Della Beata Vergine, 1610”.

Best known for her performances of Early Music, Pepe has also sung in folk and jazz ensembles and has arranged several folk songs for Baroque Voices. She also has a reputation as a fine interpreter of works by 20th and 21st Century composers: many of her own compositions have been performed in New Zealand and several recorded for broadcast by Radio New Zealand Concert. A number of her vocal works have been premiered by Baroque Voices, and some of her choral works performed internationally – in Britain, Ireland and Sweden.

Pepe is a National Recording Artist for Radio NZ Concert, and has also featured as a soloist on BBC Radios 3 and 4; on recordings by The Tudor Consort, Baroque Voices and Voices NZ; on David Farquhar’s CD “Half a Century of Song”, released in 2003, and on a NAXOS CD of Mendelssohn’s incidental music to ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, released in 2010. As an independent artist, she has recorded a Baroque duet CD, “Rustic Revelry”, with bass David Morriss, released on the Atoll label in 2006, and another duo CD, “Love’s Nature”, with harpist Helen Webby, was released on the Ode label in February 2011. As soloist and/or chorister, she has also sung in many film-score recordings, including (in no particular order): “Mortal Engines”, “Daddy’s Little Girl”, “Charlie’s Farm”, “Boar”, “Krampus”, “One Thousand Ropes”, “The Possessed”, “The Reef: Stalked”, “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim”, “A Minecraft Movie”, and the iconic NZ film “Hunt for the Wilderpeople”.

Comments from critics / reviewers on Pepe’s performances as a soloist include:

“… quite breathtaking…exquisite…” “… singing of pure magic…” (The Dominion)

“… rapturous virtuosity…” ; “… marvellous phrasing…” ;

“… There is no empty display in Pepe Ward-Smythe’s singing, just intelligence, taste and great skill” (The Evening Post)

“… a power and accuracy that cast a gleam over the whole performance.” (The Dominion Post)

“… Becker’s performance was stunning.”  (Capital Times)

“… Pepe Becker… with her stunning soprano voice that soared in the fine Nelson Cathedral acoustics…” (Nelson Mail)

[Fun fact… In addition to her life-long love of music, and early music in particular, in her 40s Pepe began practising/studying two other ancient arts: Karate - she gained her Black Belt in 2018, and Astrology - she has taught beginner Astrology classes, hosted workshops and discussions, and gives personal chart readings upon request…]

PEPE BECKER - COMPOSER

Pepe began her musical life in Nelson, singing in the Cathedral Choir, taking lead roles in school musical productions and playing oboe in local orchestras. She studied Composition at Victoria University of Wellington Te Herenga Waka, 1985-1987 under the tuition of Jack Body, David Farquhar and Ross Harris, graduating with a BMus. During her years at university she was also active as an oboist and singer; one of her first year compositions won third prize in the 1985 VUW Composers Competition; and one of her third year choral compositions, Wind and Rain, was performed by the VUW Chamber Choir at the 1988 Sonic Circus organised by Jack Body, and subsequently by Cantoris in 1990.

Pepe then focused on singing and teaching, travelling to Britain and Holland, 1991-1993, to further her studies of early music singing in particular. During this time she was commissioned by Helen Bowater (then Composer-in-Residence at the Nelson School of Music) to write a piece for a concert in Nelson (her home town): this work, In Queen Beatrix’s Garden (for electric bass & two sopranos) was performed there in 1993, just before Pepe returned to New Zealand from The Hague.

Upon her return to New Zealand Pepe focused mainly on performing (including setting up her vocal consort Baroque Voices in 1994) and raising her (three) children. In 1999, as well as joining the national chamber choir Voices NZ, she rediscovered her ‘composition muse’ and began to write again with great fervour. In September 2000 the fruits of her newly found inspiration (several new astrology-themed pieces), along with other works written between 1983 (when she was still at school) and 1992 (in Holland), were performed in a concert entitled “Many Waters”: a culmination of over 15 years of music writing.

Since 2000, Pepe has continued to compose music as well as maintaining a busy performance schedule (singing and directing) and teaching life - she gives private lessons in piano/singing/theory, and for a number of years lectured in Musicianship at Massey Conservatorium of Music and the New Zealand School of Music / Te Kōkī. In 2001 she wrote several other new works, including Introit, commissioned by the Choir of Wellington’s Cathedral of St Paul and performed by them in Britain & Ireland in 2002. Being a singer, Pepe has a special empathy for writing for the voice: most of her compositions include one or more voices, often ‘partnered’ with other melodic wind instruments and/or percussion. Most of her recent work has been for vocal consorts or choirs (both unaccompanied and accompanied), with notable exceptions such as:  Pisces I: Organis Plagalis (for solo organ), Aquarius I and Aquarius II (for solo piano), Scorpio II: From the far point of the rising of the sun… (for oboe and soprano, premiered by NZSO principal oboist Robert Orr and herself in 2005), Two Tui (for solo flute, premiered by NZSO principal flautist Bridget Douglas in 2010), Capricorn I: Pluto in terra (for solo harp, commissioned by CSO harpist Helen Webby, recorded and premiered by her in 2012/13).

Since 2016, Pepe has enjoyed a number of collaborations with Palmerston-North-based performing duo, Toi Warbrick (Warren and Virginia Warbrick), writing music for their innovative and imaginative multi-media works. Ciento Ochenta (for taonga puoro, soprano and shruti-box/accordion) was commissioned and premiered by them in 2016, and the three movements of the work provided the new-music content of their highly original multi-media show “TAHI80” (which was later named “Antipodeans”, and performed around the Manawatū and in a small town in Spain!). Pepe was then commissioned to write new works and new arrangements of Scottish songs for Toi Warbrick’s fascinating, historical story-telling, interactive show, “KONO: Song Cycle for a New Town” - which gained the “Judges’ Choice Award” at the Palmy Fringe in 2018; it was also presented at the 2018 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and at the Adelaide Fringe in 2019.

Works commissioned with funding from Creative NZ*, or other arts organisations, include:

*Hoquetus Sanctus (2008, commissioned by Baroque Voices for their “Alleluia: a newë work!” concert series); *O ignis spiritus (2009, commissioned by Baroque Voices for “Alleluia: a newë work!”); *Capricorn 1: Pluto in terra (2011, commissioned by harpist Helen Webby, for her NZ music CD “Pluck”; the CD was a finalist in the 2013 Vodafone NZ Music Awards); Ciento Ochenta (2016, commissioned by Warren and Virginia Warbrick, as part of their TAHI80 (“Antipodeans”) project of 2016-17, with funding from the Earle Creativity Trust); music for Toi Warbrick’s “KONO” (see above), and a quartet, …concrete, wood and light…, commissioned by the Futuna Chapel Trust in 2024, to commemorate the would-be 100th birthday of the chapel’s architect, John Scott (as well as one year since the passing of artist Jim Allen, whose works adorn the chapel interior).

Commendations:

Hoquetus Sanctus (2008) was one of two New Zealand works selected for performance at the ISCM World Music Days contemporary music festival in Sweden in 2009, sung by the Danish Radio Choir);

Laden Earth (2020) was one of only two works judged as “highly commended” in the Open Category of the inaugural “Compose Aotearoa!” New Zealand choral composition competition in Dec 2020.

Comments from newspaper reviewers, on concert performances of Pepe’s works, include:

“…kaleidoscope of colours…fascinating…” (The Dominion, 21 Sept 2000)

“…imaginative works…” (Capital Times, June 2005)

“…the sound pictures created were ethereally lovely…” (Capital Times, June 2005)

“…a very impressive example of, and a splendid performance of an engagingly original work.” [re: Mass of the False Relation] (The Dominion Post, 28 July 2006)

“… Ciento Ochenta proved to be a deft combination of Western art and traditional Maori music…a distinctly original, stimulating, but very satisfying, sound piece – a major achievement…” (Manawatu Standard, August 2016)

“… resonance and presence and awareness, and with a great oneness at the end…” (Middle-C, June 2024)