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"Making live music for real-time listeners was the main thrust of Sunday's closing concert for the 30th Canberra International Music Festival, appropriately themed Mulanggari (alive)," writes reviewer HELEN MUSA. ....
Video Player failed to load. Ensemble Offspring Perform Of Stars and Birds Play Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Image: Ensemble Offspring perform Of Birds and Stars by Yuwaalaraay composer Nardi Simpson. Of Stars and Birds was written after an invitation to contribute to Ensemble Offspring s birdsong collection. As a new composer in the earliest development stages of my craft, I worried how my work would stand alongside the pieces of experienced, accomplished composers who had already contributed to this series. As an Aboriginal musician with limited music theory, I also worried if I could create something of a standard suitable for the ensemble and its project partners. ....
Despite having different cultural backgrounds and experiences Indigenous composers with an Indigenous mentor, and a pianist descended from Anglo-colonial history it is nevertheless possible to create a project that can serve as a focus for unification and strength. In our instance, the trigger was a relic of the past. Specifically, an historical object made at a time of great significance for Australia: a square piano built around 1770, housed in the keyboard archives of the School of Music at ANU. Its place of manufacture was Alsace in western Europe, a small body of land that has at times been claimed by Germany, at other times by France. The disputed nature of the territory serves as an ironic parallel to our project. ....