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19 - Artists’ Perspectives Ngarra-burria Indigenous Composers and Their Interventions in Art Music Practice

from Part III - Diversities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2024

Amanda Harris
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
Clint Bracknell
Affiliation:
University of Western Australia
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Summary

The Ngarra-burria First Peoples Composers program is an Indigenous-led initiative that assists Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander musicians to develop composition skills and emerge within the Australian classical/new music sector. It is about enabling new expressions via mostly scored music for fine First Nations musicians, and the facilitation of their own narratives. This is against a background of many non-Indigenous composers appropriating First Nations cultural materials including music, and First Nations cultural and historical narratives, a practice which went on for many decades. In the chapter we hear from the founder Christopher Sainsbury and participating composer Nardi Simpson, both First Nations people. Ngarra-burria means ‘to listen and to sing’ in the Dharug Aboriginal language of the Sydney region. Whilst the industry has some way to go, in the seven years since the program began in 2016 many ensembles, festival directors, soloists, educators and broadcasters have indeed begun to listen to First Nations composers and sing with them. Many composers from the program are being commissioned, programmed, broadcast and participate in various industry events. As Nardi Simpson points out, it is not all about the music, but also about the ongoing community of First Nations musicians that existed already, of which Ngarra-burria has become a recent part. Whilst the composers glean from any relevant Western styles and techniques in the workshops we hold, they are not necessarily tethered to the same.

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Chapter
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Further Reading

Australian Music Centre First Nations Cultural Policy for Represented Artists’, Australian Music Centre, www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/guides/FirstNationsCulturalPolicy.Google Scholar
Harris, A. with Foster, S., Onus, T. and Simpson, N., Representing Australian Aboriginal Music and Dance 1930–1970 (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
‘Much Has Yet to Be Learned about Aboriginal Music’, The Sydney Morning Herald (18 April 1950), p. 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27574952.Google Scholar
Paget, J., ‘Has Sculthorpe Misappropriated Indigenous Melodies?’, Musicology Australia, 35(1), 2013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sainsbury, C., Ngarra-burria: New Music and the Search for an Australian Sound, Platform Paper No. 59 (Sydney: Currency House, 2019).Google Scholar

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