Tau’ili’ili brings a wide variety of skills and experience to this position. He is the recipient of three international music awards and has hosted TV shows and radio programmes aimed at the Pacific community in New Zealand and abroad, including Radio Samoa’s Breakfast Show and Pacific Media Network’s Pacific Breakfast: 531pi. He is a highly-accomplished integrated marketing and business development communication professional whose twenty-year career has spanned the Middle East and Australasia. His multilingual ability allows him to be at ease and respectful in complex cultural spaces with community, industry, and cultural leaders.
Tau’ili’ili was the host and co-producer for the SOUNZ podcast series Sounds of the Moana, which recently won Gold at the prestigious New York Festivals Radio Awards. Alpha also managed and researched material for the SOUNZ Pacific Animations Project in 2021.
In our Meet the Team series we invite you to sit down and learn more about each SOUNZ staff member. Today we introduce Tau’ili’ili Alpha Maiava our Moana Pacific Musics Specialist | Kaiārahi, Ngā Puoro o Te Moananui-a-Kiwa.
Can you tell us a bit about your family, kids, where you're from etc?
I am a proud father to a son and two daughters (my greatest achievement ever!), and I was born and raised in Samoa
Where did you grow up? Where else have you lived?
I grew up in Samoa for the first 15 years of my life before migrating to Nelson on a sports scholarship at Nelson College. I’ve also lived in South Korea whilst attending Korea University, and nearly 10-years in the United Arab Emirates where my wife and I started our family and our consulting business.
What do you enjoy doing when you are not working?
It sounds cliche and stereotypical being a tagata-o-le-Moana, but I love spending all my free time with my best friend/boss (the wife) and our children. We're big on movies, music, outdoor activities, reading and discovering new things and history and life…TOGETHER!
What is your earliest musical memory?
Being sung to as a wee baby by my grandmother and whichever Aunty was on babysitting duties in our small Samoan faleo’o (small hut) in the village of Nofoali’i where I was raised.
What are the values that drive you?
- Ensuring my kids grow up in the best environment that’s going to support their aspirations for/towards whatever God has created for them
- Health is wealth
- My identity is not a product of what I do, rather, what I do is a manifestation of who I am
- My wife is always right (^_^)
Favourite quote
"Show Me Your Friends and I Will Show You Your Future"
Who inspires you?
Another cliche sounding moment, but I am absolutely powered by my kids' zest for life. They are my inspiration, my aspiration, my purpose, my beginning and my everything.
What is the best concert you have ever attended?
Norah Jones first ever NZ in 2004. I’m a sit-down-and-admire-the-musicianship type of concert goer. Pure/real vocals and skills. My spirit gets a headache when acts and fellow spectators/audiences start moving around too much. Hehe
If you could be any animal, which would you be?
One that everyone doesn't mind hanging about, but no one wants to eat during any apocalyptic moment ever. Is Spirit Animal considered a viable animal choice for this question?