New Zealand National Anthem for String Orchestra

"God Defend New Zealand" was written as a poem in the 1870s by Irish-born, Victorian-raised immigrant Thomas Bracken of Dunedin.

A competition to compose music for the poem was held in 1876 by The Saturday Advertiser and judged by three prominent Melbourne musicians, with a prize of ten guineas. The winner of the competition was the Vandemonian-born John Joseph Woods of Lawrence, Otago, who composed the melody in a single sitting the evening after finding out about the competition. The song was first performed at the Queen's Theatre, Princes Street in Dunedin, on Christmas Day, 1876. In February 1878, sheet music was published.