The Australian Art Orchestra: Projects

Program

Crossing Roper Bar

Image Credit: Jeff Wassmann

Musical Director: Paul Grabowsky
Leader, Young Wagilak Group: Benjamin Wilfred
Asst. Musical Director (2006/7): Julien Wilson
Asst. Musical Director (2009-): Tony Hicks
Project start date: 2004
Premiere performance: Garma Music Festival, Gulkula NT, August 2006

Crossing Roper Bar CD: BUY NOW

Recent Performances and News:

Crossing Roper Bar
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
Llewellyn Hall — School of Music, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT
In 2010 the AAO was awarded the prestigious HC Coombs Fellowship by the Australian National University for its work on Crossing Roper Bar with the Young Wagilak Group. Workshops were conducted at the university and the ensemble performed at Llewellyn Hall as part of a week-long residency.
Read the ABC News article about the residency here

A New Manikay: Digital audio technologies and aural organicism in the Australian Art Orchestra’s Crossing Roper Bar
In July the AIATSIS Information Technologies and Indigenous Communities Symposium featured guests Benjamin Wilfred and Desmond Wilfred (Young Wagilak Group) with Aaron Corn and Samuel Curkpatrick (ANU) The talk was broadcast on Radio National’s ‘Airplay’ and can be found here

2011 Performances
The 2011 Crossing Roper Bar program is currently being put together and is looking very exciting with many opportunities to experience this extraordinary collaboration. To keep up to date on all AAO projects for 2011 sign up to our e-news mailing list on the homepage or continue to check our website. You can also follow the AAO on Facebook and Twitter

Program Notes

Crossing Roper Bar is a series of regular exchanges which have been taking place since 2005 between the Young Wagilak Group from Ngukurr in Arnhem Land and the Australian Art Orchestra (based in Melbourne). It is a collaboration based on an equal exchange of knowledge through a dialogue centered on music. An electrifying marriage of the very old with the very new, Crossing Roper Bar is a celebration of country, of ceremony, and of the power of music to build enduring bridges across cultures, time and space.

The Roper River is a magnificent waterway flowing from Mataranka, 100 kms south of Katherine, and out across the land of the Mangarayi and Yungman people. Before it reaches the Gulf of Carpentaria it passes the remote town of Ngukurr which is isolated by the Wet for several months of each year (November to Easter) when the Roper engulfs all but the highest land. At other times, Roper Bar is the point where it’s possible to cross the river and go on to Ngukurr. The crossing over seems not only a poetic but also a fitting metaphor for our collaboration, Crossing Roper Bar.

Ngukurr is an ideal place to learn about Aboriginal music because it is the gathering point for outlying peoples of the Wagilak, Ngalmi, Murrungun, Nunthirrbala, Mungurra, Lalara and Wurramurra nations, who come together under the name Yugul Mangi. The manikay (song cycles) of the Yolŋu of South East Arhnem Land represent one of the oldest and most affecting musical traditions on the planet and the song men of Ngukurr have worked closely with the AAO to create a contemporary rendering of these precious cultural artefacts – performing songs that many of their Yolŋu kin further north had thought were lost forever.

Watch excerpts from performances of Crossing Roper Bar

Tour History

2006 – Garma Music Festival, Gulkula, Northern Territory
2007 – Birrarung Marr, Melbourne; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
2008 – Top End Tour, Tura New Music: Darwin, Katherine, Timber Creek, Kununurra, Warmun, Fitzroy Crossing, Broome, Lombadina, One Arm Point, Beagle Bay, Perth
2009 – Apollo Bay Music Festival, Apollo Bay, Victoria; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre
2010 – Australian Performing Ars Market, Adelaide
Opening of ‘Colour Country: Art From the Roper River’ Exhibition, Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin; Darwin Entertainment Centre; Ngukurr, South East Arnem Land, Northern Territory
Llewelyn Hall, Australian National University, Canberra

Image Credit: Tobias Titz

Performance Artists

Benjamin Wilfred Yidaki (didjeridu), Bilma (clapsticks), vocals
Roy Wilfred Bilma, vocals
David Wilfred Yidaki
Wesley Wilfred Dance, vocals
Paul Grabowsky Keys
Tony Hicks Reeds
Stephen Magnusson Guitar
Errki Veltheim Violin
Philip Rex Bass
Niko Schauble Drums

Collaborators

Kevin Rogers Wagilak elder
Dr Aaron Corn Research Fellow in Ethnomusicolgy and Australian Indigenous Studies, University of Sydney
Tura New Music

reaching new horizons in contemporary music

Program

Crossing Roper Bar

Crossing Roper Bar CD: BUY NOW

Recent Performances and News:

Program Notes

Tour History

Performance Artists

Collaborators

Press for Crossing Roper Bar

Earth, Wind and Song Cycles Performing in Concert

Bridging the Gap Between Contemporary Music and Ancient Indigenous Music.

A Work Of Rare Integrity

Earth, Wind and Song Cycles Performing in Concert

Crossing Musical Boundaries

Renaissance on the Roper

Crossing Roper Bar - An Introduction

A Fusion of Black and White

Crossing the Divide