11 minute read
A New Dawn
Imbued with the burgeoning light and energy of a new dawn, Deborah Cheetham’s Baparripna is a fitting tribute to a time of both renewal and continuation. Elissa Blake talks to the composer to find out more.
Photography DARRIAN TRAYNOR
Do you have to be an early riser to compose a musical tribute to the dawn? Deborah Cheetham hopes not. “Honestly, I’m not really a morning person,” she laughs. “The idea of getting up at first light doesn’t appeal to me as it might have done to my ancestors. As far as I’m concerned, the best time to see the dawn is when you’ve been up all night.”
And Cheetham has been up all night – composing a new work, she’s quick to add – for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s New Beginnings: Season Opening Gala, a dawnthemed orchestral piece to sit in a program alongside Haydn’s Symphony No.6 (Le matin) and Mahler’s Symphony No.1, whose opening, Mahler said, evokes the “awakening of nature from a long winter sleep”.
“I like to work through the night and watch the dawn arrive,” Cheetham says. “I like the stillness, the uninterrupted space it provides. And the pre-dawn light you see about 25 minutes before the sun … I seem to draw a lot of energy from that.”
That same energy is in Cheetham’s earlier works, notably her opera Parrwang Lifts the Sky, which tells a story from Wadawurrung Country of a great mythic magpie who, with the help of human friends, lifted the blanket of darkness from the land to create the first dawn.
“I love the sound of the birds,” she says. “When you wake up with them it’s like they are singing you into consciousness.”
Cheetham’s new piece, titled Baparripna (meaning “good morning” or “beautiful morning” in the Yorta Yorta language of Cheetham’s ancestors), began life as a commission from the MSO’s incoming Chief Conductor Jaime Martín, who suggested Cheetham might write the piece in collaboration with composer, multi-instrumentalist and yidaki virtuoso William Barton.
“The opening concert in February will be my first contact with the audience,” says Martín. “I have really thought a lot about this. This is a new adventure for me, a new country, a new orchestra and culture.
“I’m using two pieces that are very important to me. For the Haydn, I will use a very small orchestra to slowly unveil sounds to the Concert Hall and we will finish with the Mahler, which depicts awakening after a long winter. This is the idea I passed to Deborah when I asked her to write a new piece.”
“I immediately said yes. The idea of dawn as a new beginning, a new era, a new understanding is so powerful. It’s something we’ve all come to understand and appreciate more deeply over the past couple of years of the pandemic.”
ROOTED IN HISTORY
Cheetham, a Yorta Yorta woman, distinguished soprano, composer and educator, knew she could bring a different perspective to a dawn-themed program – one informed by her heritage and experience.
She composed Australia’s first First Nations opera (Pecan Summer) and is the founder of Short Black Opera, a company devoted to the development of First Nations singers. In 2019, she also established the One Day in January project, designed to develop and nurture First Nations orchestral musicians.
Cheetham is also the writer of a requiem based on the frontier wars between First Nations people of south-western Victoria and settlers from 1840 to 1863. Titled Eumeralla, a war requiem for peace, the symphonic version was given its world premiere performance by the MSO and was sung entirely in the Gunditjmara language.
“This time I wanted to reach into the Yorta Yorta language and into the First Nations idea of time – one that stretches beyond the kind of time measured in European culture.”
In Baparripna, Cheetham captures not just the beauty of a sunrise on Yorta Yorta Country but also the anguish the composer felt at being unable to visit that Country for most of the past two years.
Yorta Yorta Country, Cheetham explains, includes the junction of the Murray and Goulburn rivers, and towns such as Echuca, Shepparton, Benalla, Wangaratta and Violet Town.
“I live on St Kilda Road, smack in the middle of Melbourne, but I’ve always been on Country within a couple of hours if I’ve needed to be. However, during the pandemic, that’s not been possible. It’s been very strange for me. In a way, the lockdown gave me the space to write but it also gave me a sense of
incredible frustration. You could really hear it in my first drafts of Baparripna. It sounded more like Armageddon!”
Writing music is more of an experiential process than an abstract one for Cheetham. “It’s something connected to my narrative, to the heritage within my DNA. I need to stand with my feet in the water of the Dungala [Murray River]. I need to hear nature surround me. I need to stand in the Barmah Forest and hear what it is my ancestors need me to say in my music. ”
THE CHANCE TO CONTINUE
If the music of Haydn and Mahler evoke a sense of new beginnings and new opportunities, it is something of a European notion, Cheetham believes.
“I think dawn in any culture brings with it a sense of possibility,” she says. “But underpinning that for me as a First Nations woman is the notion that dawn brings with it a sense of certainty and continuity. The sun brings its light into our world each morning and that’s our opportunity to continue to grow and develop our knowledge and our stories.”
The very idea of time is different in First Nations thinking, says Cheetham. “There isn’t the same emphasis on linearity, of past, present and future. For me, each day is a fresh chance to continue rather than start afresh.”
Baparripna also chimes with the arrival of Jaime Martín as Chief Conductor. For the MSO, it marks a new beginning.
“Jaime comes to us at a time when we’ve experienced a great dislocation from who we are and what we do through no fault of our own,” says Cheetham. “Rising from the pandemic, we have a fresh start and to have that while contributing to the oldest music practice in the world brings with it a great deal of significance for the Orchestra, for William and for me.”
Baparripna’s place in the MSO’s Season Opening Gala positions the company as a leader in First Nations commitment, adds Cheetham, who is the MSO’s inaugural First Nations Creative Chair. “It speaks to the need to articulate how much still needs to be done in the classical music space in terms of Indigenous engagement and the forming of true relationships and understandings with First Nations cultures.”
YIDAKI MAN
Baparripna’s feature instrument is the yidaki, the instrument often known – erroneously – as the didgeridoo (“an Anglicised, onomatopoeic word coined by the continent’s colonisers”).
It Takes a Village
Deborah Cheetham has lent her name – and given her blessing – to Ryman Healthcare’s newest residential community.
RYMAN HEALTHCARE was abuzz with excitement when word came through that one of Australia’s brightest First Nations stars was delighted to be associated with the company’s newest residential community.
The purpose-built retirement village, in the town of Ocean Grove, has now been named after Deborah Cheetham.
All involved believe it’s a perfect fit. After all, Ryman is a Premier Partner of the MSO and sets itself apart by programming a wide range of creative activities and performances at its village communities, from music classes to art exhibitions.
Another point of difference is the company’s pioneering values, particularly its commitment to providing tailored living options for people of all backgrounds, faiths and orientations.
Cheetham – a member of the Stolen Generations and the LGBTQI+ community – has been an influential advocate for First Nations people and a powerful public voice in the fight against all forms of discrimination.
“When she learned about what we try to achieve at our villages, she came on board wholeheartedly,” says Debra Richardson, Ryman’s Victorian Sales and Community Relations Manager.
Says Cheetham: “In my talks with Ryman, I discovered a level of understanding, a duty of care to its residents and a welcoming heart. Ryman are pouring their understanding
An artist’s impression of the village and (opposite) Debra Richardson with Deborah Cheetham.
Yidaki is a Yolngu word, one of several First Nations names bestowed on the instrument of which Barton is an internationally acclaimed master.
“William and I have known each other for more than 20 years,” Cheetham says. “I’ve always harboured a secret desire to write a work for him. It’s a really incredible opportunity.”
But the yidaki is a challenging voice to write for, Cheetham admits. “For a start, as a woman, it’s not my place to play the yidaki. With every other instrument that I’ve written for, I’ve had a go and, in some cases, have even become proficient. But the yidaki is one that I do not play because, from a cultural perspective, it’s not appropriate.”
Barton, who draws on the instrumental traditions of the Wannyi, Lardil and Kalkadunga tribes of western Queensland, and who has collaborated with several leading composers since he made his orchestral debut on the instrument as a teenager, has developed a form of musical notation that makes it possible for Cheetham to ask for specific effects, tones and sounds.
“It’s a very exciting process,” she says. “Being able to indicate what it is that I’d like an instrument to do is fundamental to the composer for any instrument. But traditionally, for First Nations instruments, you acquire this knowledge by learning from a master who passes it down to you in a practical sense.”
Composer and instrumentalist must strike a delicate balance, Cheetham says. “Sometimes, when you write something
down, you run the risk of diminishing it and I don’t want to limit William to just those things we are able to write down at any one time.
“That’s why coming together and being on Country and sharing the experiences I’ve been through to write the piece has been so very important. It has been a privilege and a joy to work on this.” ■
Baparripna makes its world premiere as part of the New Beginnings: Season Opening Gala, on 25 and 26 February. Bookings and enquiries, (03) 9929 9600 or mso.com.au.
of Country and their willingness to learn further into the bricks and mortar of their establishment.
“I’m so incredibly proud to be associated with them in this way.”
With the honouree confirmed, Ryman set about organising a naming ceremony for the village, which is located at Ocean Grove on the Bellarine Peninsula.
Ryman Healthcare works with First Nations communities in each of its locations to perform culturally appropriate events – in this case, a smoking ceremony conducted by the Wathaurong people.
Cheetham offered to make a surprise appearance, too. “She came up from the back of the room, singing an aria,” says Richardson. “People were moved to tears.”
Not all the new residents were familiar with Cheetham’s story. But after her appearance at the naming ceremony, many of them went online to find out more. “The residents couldn’t be prouder that they are living in a village named after this incredible woman,” says Richardson.
During the most recent Melbourne lockdown, Richardson decided to make masks and sell them to raise funds for Cheetham’s Dhungala Children’s Choir.
“Deborah asked that the proceeds go towards a project she’s organising for 2022, when some of the older children in the choir will travel to Melbourne and record with a famous Indigenous musician.”
She raised an impressive $3,000, which will cover about half the cost of the recording project. But the choir needn’t worry about the other half: “What Deborah doesn’t know yet is that Ryman has decided to match what I’ve raised, dollar for dollar.”
Richardson, who recently discovered her own Indigenous heritage, says she’s proud to work for a company that is recognising the importance of First Nations voices.
“I don’t mean to suggest that putting an Indigenous Australian’s name on a retirement village is in itself the balm for what ails race relations in this country,” she says.
“But by amplifying the voice of someone who has been an agent of understanding and reconciliation, we really hope to help hasten the process of healing in our own unique Ryman way.”
