The Panthers television series soundtrack has won best music for an original series at the annual Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) Silver Scroll Awards at Spark Arena.
The winners were Diggy Dupé, Joel Taskoff, Troy Kingi and Jonathan Crayford, who worked on the series that was released in 2021.
Singer and songwriter Dupé spoke about the positive reception from his fans and how grateful he was to help tell the Dawn Raids story through music.
“It’s been nothing but praise.”
“Coming from Grey Lynn (Auckland) and being able to represent my people, not just Pacific Islanders but also Grey Lynn and the people that were affected by it (the Dawn Raids), it was a real honour,” Dupé says.
There were five awards, two hall of fame inductions and 11 live music performances throughout the evening that included Tiki Taane, Stan Walker and Annie Crummer.
The Panthers take home an APRA.
'Pretty special'
Album music producer Tashkoff was proud to receive this award in front of many people in the industry.
“It’s mean. At the end of the day, we put in so much work to get the story and justice to the source material that was helping to tell the story through music.
“To be acknowledged on a forum like this in front of our peers and in front of legends, not just for the music but as te ao Māori, is pretty special,” Tashkoff says.
The four-man crew were up against two other television series in their category: Conrad Wedde, Samuel Scott, Luke Buda (Moniker) for Wellington Paranormal and Claire Cowan for One Lane Bridge.
Tashkoff, who is a music lawyer by day, says it's extra special that they were able to win a tightly contested award.
“You just feel humbled and honoured.
'Whakapapa of excellence'
“Because of the people who have come before us that have won this award, there’s a whakapapa of excellence there and so I am pretty proud of our team,” he says.
Dupé, Tashkoff and Crayford (best known for his role in the movie The Pianist) were the core team in preparing music for the TV series with Kingi joining a month before finishing the album.
Dupé, who is of Niuean heritage, felt the key to the success of the soundtracks was that everyone knew how to use their strengths to add value to the music.
“Everybody played their role, like you (Taskoff) were the producer and Jonathan Crayford did the score. We all kind of stayed in their own lanes and it worked.”
Tashkoff confirmed this by paying tribute to the talents of his musicians and how they appreciated each other's work.
Respect
He feels the love for each other's talents was what helped create a happy working environment to record the music they wanted.
“I didn’t know Jonathan (Craydford) before we started working together but when I saw what he could do on the piano, that guy is a tohunga on the piano. He’s the man, jazz hands.
“You can tell him something like a melody and he just goes and plays all these extended versions of the chords and he’s been doing it for so long.
“So I admired him for that. I didn't think I was that much compared to him but he told me he admired me for something he can’t do.”
Previous winners of the award include Karl Steven for the show Black Hands and David Long for The Luminaries.
The 13-song soundtrack has been released on all mainstream music platforms, including Spotify and YouTube.
