Crossing Roper Bar
Image credit: Jeff Wassmann
Musical Director: Paul Grabowsky
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
Latest news:
A New Manikay: Digital audio technologies and aural organicism in the Australian Art Orchestra’s Crossing Roper Bar
13th July 11am, AIATSIS Information Technologies and Indigenous Communities Symposium
Featuring guests Benjamin Wilfred and Desmond Wilfred with Aaron Corn and Samuel Curkpatrick (ANU)
The “Shine Dome”
Australian Academy of Science (ANU)
Gordon St
Canberra ACT 2600
Registrations close 2nd July. See the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Studies website for more details: http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/research/symposia/Digi10.html
Program Notes
Crossing Roper Bar is a series of regular exchanges which have been taking place between the Young Wagilak Group from Ngukurr in Arnhem Land and the Australian Art Orchestra (based in Melbourne) since 2004. It is a collaboration based on an equal exchange of knowledge through a dialogue centred 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 Yolngu of 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 Yolgnu kin further north had thought was lost forever.
Watch excerpts from performances of Crossing Roper Bar
Tour History
2006 – Garma Music Festival, Gulkula, Northern Territories
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
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
Press for Crossing Roper Bar
- Earth, Wind and Song Cycles Performing in Concert
- The Age (Jessica Nicholas) 22 March 2007
- Bridging the Gap Between Contemporary Music and Ancient Indigenous Music.
- ABC Darwin 18 August 2008
- A Work Of Rare Integrity
- (Dr Aaron Corn)
- Very Old Meets Very New in Quest for Mutual Understanding
- www.resonatemagazine.com.au (Kelly Curran) 25 September 2008
- Crossing Musical Boundaries
- Rhythms Magazine (Tony Hillier) Thursday, February 26, 2009
- Renaissance on the Roper
- The Australian (Nicolas Rothwell) 30 April 2009
- Crossing Roper Bar - An Introduction
