The answer, never straightforward, only gets more complicated as our society grows more diverse. Music encompasses so many forms, from virtuoso performances to community orchestras and pub singalongs. Is it a realistic aspiration for a performing arts organisation, founded to present chamber music from the Western Art Music tradition?
Digging into a cluster of projects in 2024 and the way they interact offers some answers.
The story begins at Ngutu College, an independent, not-for-profit, socially-just college on Kaurna Country based in Woodville North, South Australia. The School, which opened in 2021, has been participating in a Music Education Residency Program, delivered by Musica Viva Australia, for the last three years. This is a comprehensive program offering performances, instrumental tuition and an ensemble program for students alongside professional development and mentoring for teachers, to build a self-sustaining music program for the future. A music-rich future, even.
At the beginning of 2024 Musica Viva Australia State Manager Sandra Taylor met with Ngutu College teaching artist Stephanie Insanally to plan activities for the year. Steph mentioned an instrumental teacher who was exploring circular breathing, a sophisticated breathing technique now used by elite brass and woodwind performers, but also at the core of yidaki, or didgeridoo, playing. The students, she said, were inspired by this challenge; a number of boys were learning yidaki and a local Elder, Uncle Phil, had come out of retirement to meet the demand.
This led to the idea that Ngutu College participate in Strike A Chord, the national school-age chamber music competition run by Musica Viva Australia’s Emerging Artist program. It would be a fun goal to aim for and an exciting first for the school. Only one problem: where do you find chamber music for an ensemble of yidakis? The answer came from Uncle Phil, aka Ngutu music tutor Phillip Allen:
'Ever since time can be remembered, Aboriginal people have been storytellers'
'That told how things were, how things are, and how things will be; this is our recording of history, law, and lore. With this in mind, and with limited time to prepare, we had a skeleton outline of a story that needed to be developed.'
Enter Ngutu Ipila Kumangka, an ensemble made up of eight students playing instruments including two violins, a cello, bells and body percussion, yidakis, rainsticks and clapsticks. With the guidance of Uncle Phil, the students created a new work, created a notation system to document that work for the competition judges, made a video recording and entered the competition.
The judges described their entry Purka Mukaparrinthi (Old Man Thinking to One's Self), as an enthralling storytelling performance, awarding the group with a Novice Highly Commended Prize and Innovation Prize.
Ngutu Ipila Kumangka winners of the Novice Highly Commended Prize and Innovation Prize
Meanwhile, in Brisbane (and independently of Strike A Chord and the Music Education Residency Program) Ensemble Q was rehearsing for a national tour for Musica Viva Australia’s mainstage subscription series. Ensemble Q is a chamber music supergroup, a band of virtuosos from across the orchestral sound palette, led by clarinettist Paul Dean and cellist Trish Dean, which includes winds, strings and percussion (just like Ngutu Ipila Kumangka). For their tour, artistic director Paul Kildea set them a challenge: to explore sonic possibilities beyond their own, highly flexible ensemble by collaborating with virtuoso didgeridoo player, William Barton. The result, in combination with works by Johannes Brahms, Paul Dean and Gyorgy Ligeti, invited Musica Viva Australia’s traditional audiences to listen closely to the myriad possibilities of layered sound, words, worlds and ideas.
‘Journey to the Edge of the Horizon is me aligning my cultural heritage and legacy of the landscape with the modern world,’ said the composer in an interview with Sonya Holowell. ‘I imagine bringing people to a space and time in that 17 minute performance- I want to take people there.’
Now that’s a vision.
And, for Musica Viva Australia, it’s also an opportunity to join up the dots, to weave together the different threads that make up a music-rich future for all Australians.
William Barton at Ngutu College
'Sit up straight, be proud of who you are'
Ensemble Q’s tour with William Barton would take them to Adelaide Town Hall for just one night. On the day of the concert, Barton travelled with Sandra Taylor to Ngutu College to meet with students, listen to them play, and share culture.
Barton talked about family, about art and his responsibility, their responsibility to be proud of their identity. It wasn’t all serious: he also gave them tips on new noises they could make on the yidaki, how to use their voices, to make it fun and inject a little showmanship into their playing.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen these kids sit quite so still,’ says Sandra. ‘There were so many layers. It was a privilege to be in the room.’
Later that day the students travelled to Adelaide Town Hall to attend the Ensemble Q concert, with Barton’s words, 'Sit up straight, be proud of who you are' still in their ears. And after the concert, he posed for pictures on stage with the group, signed autographs and returned a Ngutu College yidaki, borrowed from them and played in the concert.
'The 26 young boys were starstruck,’ says Sandra.
The Ensemble Q tour ended with a chorus of praise from critics, noting the virtuosic performances. West Australian critic David Cosworth wrote: ‘Vignettes drawn from nature danced attendance on the age-old soul of the didgeridoo; reflecting, relaxing then re-engaging as Barton worked the dynamic of seasoned wood and human breath; …a tone poem for the ages summoned not by serried orchestral ranks but by a cohort of eight ancient and modern instruments each expertly guided and delivered.’
Ensemble Q went on to become one of the best-selling tours of 2024.
Meanwhile, Ngutu College’s Music Education Residency came to a close in December 2024. Their end of year concert was a celebratory affair which featured student ensembles of all shapes and sizes, plus a performance from the Citizen Orchestra, a group assembled from students, teachers, parents and community members, all making music together.
It is just the start of a sustained music program at Ngutu College. But, as this Annual Report is being compiled in early 2025, Ngutu College has already applied for a coaching session for this year’s Strike A Chord, which bodes well.
This – all of this, from concert stage to classroom to community hall – might be what a music-rich future for all Australians looks like.
