GRIGORYAN BROTHERS SATURDAY 27–SUNDAY 28 MARCH 2021
Photo: Christopher Morrison
GRIGORYAN BROTHERS
This Is Us
SATURDAY 27 MARCH 2021 | 2.30PM SUNDAY 28 MARCH 2021 | 11.00AM SUNDAY 28 MARCH 2021 | 2.30PM UK ARIA CULTURAL CENTRE MT BARKER SUMMIT
These concerts are proudly presented by UKARIA. This Is Us: A Musical Reflection of Australia was commissioned by the National Museum of Australia with support from Ulrike Klein AO and the Museum’s Donor Community.
Slava Grigoryan Guitars Leonard Grigoryan Guitars
PROGR AM
Slava Grigoryan (b. 1976) and Leonard Grigoryan (b. 1985) This Is Us: A Musical Reflection of Australia I. Love Token* II. Deep Time III. Southern Sky IV. Journey Women V. Love and Forgiveness VI. Song for the Road VII. Fred’s Vision* VIII. Stolen IX. Don’s Bat* INTERVAL X. Thylacine XI. Hunter’s Edge* XII. Ðàn Tre* XIII. Desperation XIV. Mourning Dress XV. A Fortunate Wind XVI. Two Homes, One Heart XVII. Our Land XVIII. Hidden Past
*The objects that inspired these works will be exhibited at UKARIA Cultural Centre following each performance and appear courtesy of the National Museum of Australia. Note | Complimentary afternoon tea will be served in the alfresco during the interval.
This Is Us: A Musical Reflection of Australia Dear Friends, We are thrilled to introduce this new project to you all. It’s a departure from the work that we’ve created in the past and it’s the first project that consists entirely of our original compositions. Over the years we have included odd pieces of our own in concert programs and on recordings, but this is the first time we have collaborated compositionally as a duo. In 2019, we were commissioned to compose some music by the National Museum of Australia (NMA) in Canberra to celebrate their twentieth anniversary. We were given ‘free reign’ as to what the composition was to be about. After spending a few exploratory days in the NMA, we were completely overwhelmed by the objects and the stories that they represent as well as the scale of the NMA itself and the vastness of the warehouse in Mitchell. Along the way we were gently guided by the curatorial staff, who we found just as inspiring as the objects themselves. We were stunned by the passion they have for their workplace and the objects they know so much about. After much deliberation we settled on eighteen objects. These objects, in our eyes, are a wonderful representation of what it means to be Australian. We chose artefacts that try to represent some of our First Nations’ history as well as colonisation, migration, innovation and stories of love and loss. We were deeply moved by all of them.
In the end, this project turned into our main focus throughout the pandemic. Being cut off from each other for the first time ever – Slava in Adelaide and Leonard in Sydney – we had to create a new approach that would work without us actually being together. After splitting the list in half we individually developed a concept for each piece and then shared our ideas remotely. After going back and forth like this, the pieces took shape. The recording itself was scheduled and rescheduled a number of times due to COVID-19 outbreaks and the state border closures that followed. We were finally able to reconnect at the ABC studios in Adelaide on 11 December 2020. We hope you enjoy this music. Its aim is to provide a narrative, a soundtrack to the stories behind these powerful objects. We are really looking forward to playing this music and sharing our love for these objects for many years to come. This project couldn’t have happened without Dr Mathew Trinca AM, and all of the incredible staff at the NMA. A very big thank you also to our friends Ulrike Klein AO and Alison Beare at the UKARIA Cultural Centre for their support of this project. Our deepest thanks also to Toby Chadd, Hugh Robertson, Jakub Gaudasinski and Tom Henry at ABC Classic as well as our manager Reuben Zylberszpic. A big thank you also to Douglas Gautier for introducing us to Mathew Trinca in the first place! Finally, to our families, a very heartfelt thanks for all of their continued love and support. Slava and Leonard Grigoryan
Convict love token, 1819. Photo: National Museum of Australia
I. LOVE TOKEN This is one of 314 convict love tokens the National Museum of Australia holds in its collection. They were made by convicts facing transportation to Australia, usually at the time of sentencing, and were given to family members and friends they would leave behind. Smoothing and engraving a coin with a message of affection was one of the few ways a convict could leave a memento with a loved one in England. These small tokens, also known as ‘leaden hearts’, record personal and emotional responses from convicts whose lives are more often represented by official government records. This token, inscribed in 1819, bears the words, ‘Dear brother when you see this remember me when I am far away’.
The Grigoryan Brothers describe the Museum’s collection of more than 300 convict love tokens as both moving and inspiring. They chose this particular token because the words engraved on it had resonance for them. It is reflective of the geographical distance between Slava and Leonard during the COVID-19 global pandemic and their deep and enduring personal connection as brothers. The composition is a timeline, invoking a sense of longing and distance as it builds towards a final reunion. This object will be exhibited at UKARIA Cultural Centre following each performance.
Ground piece of haematite (ochre) from Madjedbebe rock shelter, Arnhem Land. Photo: with permission of Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation. Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.
II. DEEP TIME This ground piece of haematite (ochre) is from the Madjedbebe rock shelter site, deep in the heart of Mirarr Country in Arnhem Land. Aboriginal artefacts from Majdedbebe have been dated to 65,000 years ago, making them the oldest evidence of human history in Australia. These artefacts are a significant part of Mirarr people’s cultural heritage. Traditional law and custom applies to them, including the right to control their use and their images. Please contact the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation at culturalheritage@mirarr.net to request permission to reproduce, use or publish any image or photograph of these items.
A sense of deep time resonates through this composition, which represents over 60,000 years of human history on the Australian continent. Long, angular and stretched-out chords convey a stillness. The music quite literally draws on the concept of rock – stylistically referring to rock formations, physical changes to the landscape over time and the very materiality of ochre.
Grubb refractor telescope, 1883. Photo: National Museum of Australia
III. SOU T HERN SK Y
Amateur astronomer William John Macdonnell purchased this telescope from Thomas Grubb’s Astronomical Instrument Works, Dublin, in about 1885. He installed it in an observatory he had built behind the Port Macquarie Bank of New South Wales, where he worked as manager, and turned it to the heavens. Macdonell used the telescope in a range of observing programs, mapping double stars and sunspots and investigating the planets and the satellites of Jupiter. He published his findings in British and Australian scientific journals and became an eminent Australian astronomer, but was forced to sell the instrument during the financial crisis of the 1890s. The telescope was eventually acquired by Sydney architect E.H. Beattie, who used it extensively from 1906 and published many scientific papers based on his observations. In 1921 it was dismantled and placed in storage, where it remained for the next 85 years. The Museum has returned it to working condition, as it would have appeared in the late nineteenth century. The Grigoryan Brothers spent many hours discussing the Grubb telescope and the stories behind it. Their composition attempts to capture the life of William John Macdonnell and his passion for the southern skies. The work imagines the stars and the planets and how Macdonnell might have felt as he explored and mapped the night sky. The melody
is almost mournful, acknowledging that Macdonnell worked alone but was surrounded by the source of his passion. It’s an atmospheric piece, drawing out the sounds of openness and space while invoking a sense of wonder at the vastness of the universe.
Story of the Women’s Camp and the Origin of Damper, 1973, by Anatjari Tjakamarra. © the estate of the artist / Aboriginal Artists Agency. Photo: National Museum of Australia
IV. JOURNE Y WOMEN
Anatjari Tjakamarra’s Story of the Women’s Camp and the Origin of Damper, painted in 1973, depicts a journey undertaken by a group of women whose Ancestral forces shaped the desert landscape. The linear array of squares represents the path they travelled, and the circles are the dampers they made from wild seeds. The circles are joined by a connecting grid that links the exploits of the women to a wider network of Pintupi sites and people. Anatjari Tjakamarra lived a foraging life remote from Europeans until 1966. Within five years of arriving in Papunya he was among the first artists to begin painting with acrylics. This painting marks a brief transitional phase in the history of the Papunya painting movement between the small, irregular-sized wooden boards of the early years and the large stretched canvases for which Papunya is famous today. Slava and Leonard spent time looking through the Museum’s significant collection of First Nations art before choosing this piece. The evocative score tells the story of a group of women on an epic journey. It reflects a sense of awe while also attempting to aurally capture the complex geography and design represented in the work.
Gold mourning locket containing a photograph of Australian champion boxer Les Darcy. Photo: National Museum of Australia
V. LOVE AND FORGIVENES S
This small gold locket contains a portrait of Australia’s ‘golden boy of boxing’ Les Darcy and a lock of his hair. It was found among the personal effects of Winnie O’Sullivan, Darcy’s first love, following her death in 1974. Darcy, the son of a poor Irish Catholic family in East Maitland, near Newcastle, won twenty-two consecutive fights in 1915–16 and earned enough money to pay out his blacksmith’s apprenticeship and buy his parents a house. He became a national hero, but later fell from grace after a smear campaign accused him of shirking his wartime military duties by heading to the United States. Here, Darcy fell ill from an infection following dental surgery and died from septicaemia, with Winnie by his side. He was only twenty-one. When Les Darcy’s body arrived back in Australia, hundreds of thousands of people filed past his open casket to pay their respects. In death, all had been forgiven. Perhaps Winnie, who later married and started a family, kept the locket safely hidden, but never far from her reach or her thoughts.
‘The story of this locket lends itself to music,’ says Leonard. ‘It has a beautiful and romantic melody.’ The piece is an imagining of Winnie O’Sullivan sitting beside her love, Les Darcy, as he dies. It explores the emotions she may have felt: love and loss. The work is also reflective of the forgiveness that Les Darcy was blessed with at the end of his life when his body was returned to Australia from the United States, despite the rumours that had tarnished his reputation.
1946 Prototype No. 1 Holden sedan. Photo: National Museum of Australia
VI. SONG FOR T HE ROAD Prototype No. 1 is the only survivor of three test Holden sedans built by hand in 1946 by American and Australian engineers at the General Motors workshop in Detroit. After extensive testing, the three prototypes of ‘Australia’s own car’ were brought to Australia for road trials under local conditions. The first Holden, the 48-215, rolled off the assembly line at Fishermen’s Bend in Melbourne on 29 November 1948. Many
saw the event as evidence of national maturity, proof that Australia had escaped its pastoral beginnings and embraced the modern industrial age. Public reaction to the prospect of an Australian-built car had been extraordinary, with about 18,000 people signing up for a Holden without knowing a single detail about the car. By 1958 Holden sales accounted for more than forty per cent of total car sales in Australia.
This work captures the idea of the Holden and what it represents for so many people in Australia. It is a ‘road song’ filled with a sense of wonder, possibility and wideopen spaces. ‘For many Australians, the Holden was a new possession that meant freedom and the ability to commute long distances,’ says Slava.
This object also made the brothers reflect on their own lives as musicians on the road, touring. ‘Travelling long distances from A to B – it’s such a big part of our life and we love it.’
Box of trial lenses and frames that belonged to Fred Hollows. Photo: National Museum of Australia
VII. FRED’S VISION
Professor Fred Hollows was an Australian surgeon and humanitarian who worked to improve the eye health of people living in under-privileged circumstances in Australia and overseas.
This composition is a dedication to Fred Hollows. It imagines Hollows travelling long distances to different regional and outback communities with a fundamental purpose to help people.
From 1976 to 1978 he was director of the National Trachoma and Eye Health Program in Australia, which sent teams of ophthalmologists and support staff to regional and outback Australia, including 465 Aboriginal communities. He also worked across Africa and Asia to empower communities to restore people’s sight.
‘He was a beautiful man who did so much,’ says Leonard. ‘He would go out day after day with this box and do good for people, changing their lives.’
This case of trial lenses and frames from the national trachoma program relates to Hollows’ pioneering work in the field. Eye examinations were conducted in makeshift medical sites, sometimes in tents, sometimes on the side of the road. Fred Hollows died in 1993 but the Fred Hollows Foundation continues to campaign for blindness prevention and improved health for First Nations people. His wife, Gabi, and the Foundation donated this and other objects from the trachoma program and Fred Hollows’ personal collection to the Museum in 2012.
This object will be exhibited at UKARIA Cultural Centre following each performance.
Gate from Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home, 1950s. Photo: National Museum of Australia
VIII. S TOLEN
This gate was one of a pair that formed the front gates of the Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home in Kempsey, NSW. Established by the Aboriginal Protection Board in 1924, the Home housed boys aged five to fifteen who had been removed from their families under the New South Wales Aborigines Protection Act. These boys are now recognised as members of the Stolen Generations. More than 400 boys experienced life at Kinchela until it closed in 1970. During its operation, the institution was the subject of positive news stories in local and national media. The reality, however, was quite different. Reports from private researchers and government officials describe the brutal treatment and teaching practices and the terrible living conditions suffered by its residents over five decades. The gates were discarded and replaced in about 1950. In the late 1990s this section of the gate was found by the Macleay River in Kempsey. Now part of the Museum’s collection, the gate represents the stories of the Kinchela boys and of the Stolen Generations more broadly.
Inspired by the story of the Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home, this work is one of the saddest and most heartbreaking compositions in the suite. It is made up of three sections. The first presents a mournful and dramatic moment representing the passing of time and looking back. The second, a solo played by Slava, is a poignant cry directly tackling the traumatic history associated with the gate. The third has more movement and is the most optimistic of the three sections. It envisages the community of boys gathering years later and sharing their stories. As a whole, the work grapples with survival, resilience and optimism.
Autographed cricket bat used by Sir Donald Bradman in the 1934 Ashes series. Photo: National Museum of Australia
IX . DON’S BAT
This bat was used by Sir Donald Bradman in the first Test Match against England at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, during the 1934 Ashes series, which was won by Australia. As a child in Bowral, NSW, Bradman had always played with second-hand bats given to him by older players. When he was seventeen, his mother promised to buy him a new bat of his own if he made a century in a match playing for Bowral against Moss Vale. Bradman made 300 in the first innings of this match and his mother kept her promise. Bradman chose a bat made by William Sykes and Sons of Yorkshire. He continued to use this brand, almost exclusively, for the rest of his cricketing life. During his career he scored 6,996 test runs and 28,067 first-class runs for New South Wales and then South Australia. Bradman continues to hold the record for highest test batting average at 99.94. Bradman died in 2001 but continues to hold an iconic place in Australian sporting legend.
This composition is unashamedly joyous. It imagines Don Bradman on the pitch scoring quick runs. The music is energetic and stylistically has an ‘Australiana and bluegrassy feel’. It reflects the important role sport continues to play in Australian culture. This object will be exhibited at UKARIA Cultural Centre following each performance.
Preserved wet specimen of a whole skinned thylacine. Photo: National Museum of Australia
X . T HYL ACINE
One of the most fragile specimens in the Museum’s collection is a whole preserved body of a thylacine, an extinct carnivorous marsupial commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger. There is no information about how or where this specimen was collected. The last welldocumented capture of a wild thylacine was in 1930, and this animal was probably collected around that time. The last known thylacine died on 7 September 1936 at Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart. Thylacines were officially declared extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 1982 and by the state government of Tasmania in 1986. Since this time, thylacines have become a symbol of the escalating extinctions among Australia’s fauna in modern times. ‘Seeing the thylacine wet specimen was a moving and otherworldly experience. A creature from a different time, suspended in stillness,’ says Leonard. The work begins with sparse chords that represent this sense of stillness. It then imagines what the thylacine would have been like when alive; a twelve-string and a classical guitar come together to create an exotic, otherworldly sound that captures a sense of movement.
The work reflects on the fact that this beautiful creature once existed on the Australian continent but today lives on as something mysterious and foreign.
Brown bottle glass ‘Kimberley point’ collected in the early twentieth century. Photo: National Museum of Australia
XI. HUN T ER’S EDGE
The Museum cares for a highly prized collection of tools and trade items from north-west Australia, of which the Kimberley points form an important part. ‘Points’ were traditionally made from stone and used for the tips of spears and as exchange items. After European settlement, Aboriginal people were quick to make use of new materials such as glass and ceramics. They were easier to work with, gave a very sharp edge and were relatively accessible. Made from old glass bottles, like this one collected in the early twentieth century, and ceramics from telegraph insulators, as well as stone, the Kimberley points reflect the skill of their makers, who detached tiny flakes using a pressure-flaking technique to produce long and symmetrical forms. The consistent flaking properties of glass meant points could be longer and more finely shaped than those made from stone. The combination of skilled and intricate workmanship and new materials of varying colours, textures and translucencies produced spearheads of great beauty.
‘This composition is rhythmically complex and very challenging from a technical perspective,’ says Slava. It captures the concept of a dance between a hunter and their pray. The brothers had a clear image in their minds while composing the piece. They saw a warrior hunting, with a long spear in his hand fitted with this ingenious and beautiful piece of craftsmanship. This object will be exhibited at UKARIA Cultural Centre following each performance.
- tre, created by Vietnamese refugee Minh Tam Nguyen. Bamboo hybrid stringed musical instrument called a dàn Photo: National Museum of Australia
XII. ÐÀN T RE
- tre, or ‘bamboo Minh Tam Nguyen’s dàn musical instrument’, stands almost a metre high. Its twenty-three wire strings are attached to a bamboo tube, with an old olive oil tin as a resonator. It is based on an instrument Nguyen invented in 1976 while a prisoner of war in the ‘re-education’ camps of the People’s Liberation Armed Forces, or Vietcong, in central Vietnam. - tre with him when Nguyen brought the dàn he and his son came to Australia in 1982. Playing it connected him to the family he had to leave behind, and helped him cope with loneliness. In 1990 Nguyen’s mother, wife and three other children made it to Australia too. Reunited with his family, Nguyen finally - tre. felt able to part with the dàn - tre can be used to play both Asian The dàn and European music. It combines features from the Vietnamese bamboo zithers and Western instruments like the guitar. This piece is a response to the many stories of immigration to Australia from parts of Asia, as a wonderful aspect of modern Australian life. The composition draws on elements of Vietnamese folk melodies from Central Vietnam that the brothers believe could have been played on the - tre. It combines sounds from Asia dàn and the Western world to embody the instrument’s ability to play music from both geographic regions.
The piece reflects the movement and act of Minh Tam Nguyen leaving his birth country and arriving in Australia in search of a new life. This object will be exhibited at UKARIA Cultural Centre following each performance.
Lifebuoy from MV Tampa. Photo: National Museum of Australia
XIII. DESPER ATION
This lifebuoy was part of the safety equipment used on the MV Tampa, a container ship owned and operated by the Norwegian shipping company Wallenius Wilhelmsen. In August 2001 the ship’s crew rescued hundreds of asylum-seekers, mainly Hazaras from Afghanistan, from a stranded Indonesian fishing boat in international waters off Christmas Island and attempted to bring them to Australia. The asylum-seekers became stranded on the Tampa when it was refused entry into Australian Territorial Waters. Many were in poor health, so the ship’s captain decided to enter Australian waters after making repeated requests for assistance. The government responded by dispatching forty-five SAS troops to board the ship and prevent it from sailing any closer to Christmas Island. The ‘Tampa Crisis’ became a pivotal issue in the 2001 federal election campaign. As a result the Commonwealth Government enacted the ‘Pacific Strategy’ as a series of bills intended to strengthen border control and national security. ‘This composition includes strange chords that reflect the asylum-seekers’ sense of being stranded on water, of being nowhere. It is a cry for help,’ explains Slava.
Harmonically this work is unsteady, reflecting the horrific events experienced by refugees aboard the MV Tampa. This piece not only engages with the specific story of those aboard the ship but also explores this defining moment in Australian history that signalled a shift to offshore processing in Australia.
Sheer black mourning ‘overdress’ with ruffled bodice that belonged to Muriel McPhee, 1910–20. Photo: National Museum of Australia
XIV. MOURNING DRES S
Muriel McPhee grew up on a cattle property near Grafton in northern New South Wales. During the First World War, she worked on the family farm by day and sewed by lamplight in the evening. An accomplished seamstress, Muriel carefully stitched underwear, nightdresses, pillowcases, tablecloths and doilies. These formed her trousseau, a collection of items made in preparation for married life. She kept a photograph of a young soldier on her dressing table, but little is known about the man she was to marry. When he was killed, she packed away the trousseau forever. This dress is the only black item among Muriel’s trousseau. Worn over everyday clothes, it provided a cost-effective way to acknowledge the death of a loved one. This composition conveys a sense of sadness and mourning that is broadly reflective of the experience of death. It was composed on the ukulele to produce a delicate and fragile sound. The work has a sense of nostalgia that links directly to Muriel McPhee’s trousseau. It imagines Muriel making beautiful objects and preparing for her future wedding and a shared life that never came.
Stream anchor from Matthew Flinders’ ship the Investigator. Photo: National Museum of Australia
X V. A FORT UNAT E WIND
On 18 July 1801, Matthew Flinders set sail in the Investigator to explore and chart the Australian coastline. Returning via Timor down the West Australian coast in a badly leaking vessel and with cases of dysentery and fever abroad, Flinders stopped at Middle Island in the Recherche Archipelago in May 1803 to rest his crew and replenish supplies. After four days catching geese and boiling down seals for oil, Flinders and his crew made ready to leave. A strong breeze blew up and Flinders let down his stream and best bower anchors to prevent his ship from being blown onto rocks. Suddenly the wind changed and he had to cut both anchors free to avoid shipwreck. In 1969, after years of research, maritime historian Robert Sexton believed he had identified where the anchors lay. In a recovery mission led by Doug Seton, the anchors were raised by the Cape Don lighthouse ship, after 170 years in the water. This anchor highlights one of the stellar voyages of discovery and Flinders’ naming of Australia. By circumnavigating the continent, he confirmed its island status after many years of conjecture and uncertainty.
Matthew Flinders was a proficient musician and his flute accompanied him on his journeys. Flinders’ journal references what he was practising on the flute at the time and who he played with. This joyous piece captures Flinders’ passion for music and combines it with the experience of cutting the last anchor from the Investigator to survive. Good fortune prevailed. The work includes a direct musical quote from a piece Flinders is known to have played: the Trio from Ignaz Pleyel’s Sonatina No. 2 for Keyboard with Violin Accompaniment. It then veers into a modern and groove-based work that is fun and optimistic. It symbolises the favourable conditions Flinders encountered when delivering the Investigator back to safety.
Fruit picking apron that belonged to Italian migrant Carmelo Mirabelli, 1950s. Photo: National Museum of Australia
X VI. T WO HOMES, ONE HE ART
Carmelo Mirabelli bought this apron to pick stone fruit in Shepparton, Victoria. Leaving behind an impoverished life in Sicily when he immigrated to Australia in 1951, he spent six years following the seasonal harvests of sugar cane in Queensland, and stone fruit and grapes in Victoria. Mirabelli could carry about eighteen kilograms of fruit in the apron. In Sicily, he had picked fruit as a child to help support his family and he used the same techniques to become one of the fastest fruit-pickers in Shepparton. After moving to Melbourne to work on the waterfront, Mirabelli followed Sicilian tradition by marrying a woman from his hometown by proxy. He intended to return to Italy, but built a house in Melbourne, and lived there with his wife, Sandra, and their two children. Finally, in 1971, he returned to Sicily to visit. This piece captures a common experience of mid-twentieth-century Australia. It references the reality of many European migrants who had two homes – one in Europe, the other in Australia.
These two homes and the vast distance between them are represented by the choice of instruments – an electric guitar played by Slava and a classical guitar played by Leonard. There is a sense of heartfelt yearning and loneliness, drawing on the emotions commonly experienced by those who, despite the opportunity they sought, missed the country of their birth. European migration is a huge and significant aspect of Australia’s story and this composition represents that.
‘We Want Land Rights Right Now’ placard used at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra, 1972. Photo: National Museum of Australia.
X VII. OUR L AND
In December 1976 the Federal Parliament passed the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act. It was the first legislation in Australia that enabled First Nations people to claim rights for land where traditional ownership could be proven. The Aboriginal Tent Embassy, in front of Old Parliament House in Canberra, was founded by activists from New South Wales in 1972 to further the land rights cause. Originally established under a beach umbrella, a tent was donated, and the embassy quickly drew hundreds of supporters. Carrying placards like this one, groups from the embassy went on marches, lobbied government and spoke at community forums to keep the issue of land rights front and centre in local and national debates. Reflecting on the long history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander activism in Australia, this work represents the idea that while things change, the pace of this change is slow. Musically the work is repetitive, with little movement. It builds to almost a yell or a scream to reflect a sense of frustration at the lack of meaningful change.
Yellow Swansea bicycle that belonged to Darrell Hick. Photo: National Museum of Australia
X VIII. HIDDEN PAS T
This yellow Swansea bicycle belonged to Darrell Hick, who used it on holiday trips to Rottnest, a popular island getaway off the Western Australian coast near Fremantle. Darrell bought the bike, a heavy yellow cruiser with no gears, at a garage sale in the 1970s. It soon earned the nickname ‘Hernia’, as it made heavy work of the island’s rolling terrain. He still bears scars from a quokka, a wallaby species synonymous with the land, getting caught under the pedals. Devoted to recreational use from the 1900s, Rottnest has become an iconic location for generations of Western Australians. But from 1838 to 1904 the island was the site of a prison in which Aboriginal men and boys from across Western Australia were incarcerated. Unbeknown to many holidaymakers, the popular camping area of Tentland (now closed) was sited on a burial ground for those who perished in the brutal, overcrowded and disease-ridden facility.
This composition captures the duality of Rottnest Island. It is a beautiful holiday destination that many Western Australians travel to each summer, yet so few people know about its dark past. The piece is technically complex. It is lively in the beginning, representing Darrell Hick tearing around the island on his bike. At the same time there is an undercurrent of the island’s lesser-known past. The music suggests a foreboding and something that is dangerous and painful.
BIOGR APHY
Grigoryan Brothers Guitarists Slava and Leonard Grigoryan are counted amongst the finest musicians of their generation, having developed a reputation for enthralling audiences with the energy of their performances and the breadth of their repertoire – embracing genres such as classical, jazz and contemporary music from around the world. Between them, they have received four ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) awards and an incredible 25 ARIA Award nominations. As a duo they have recorded twelve albums. They have been touring internationally since 2003, regularly appearing throughout Europe, Asia, Australia and the USA, as well as giving concerts in Brazil, South Africa, India and the Middle East. Their diverse repertoire continues to present new opportunities for performances in traditional and unconventional settings, from projects with orchestras, to duo performances in iconic classical venues such as London’s Wigmore Hall and Vienna’s Konzerthaus. Their ability to perform in disparate genres has resulted in invitations from arts festivals, jazz festivals, folk festivals and the WOMAD Festival, as well as performing in more intimate spaces such as clubs and salons. Their recent tours and releases are a testament to their broad appeal and incredible skills: in August 2017 they performed as support for the Canadian singer / songwriter k.d. lang on her Ingénue
Redux 25th Anniversary Tour. This was followed immediately by another national tour sharing the stage and billing with the great Flamenco guitarist Paco Peña. All of this occurred while their classical release Songs Without Words was at the top of the classical music charts for three months. In February 2018 k.d. lang invited them to join her for a 21-date, five-week USA tour, followed by a UK tour in 2019. In November 2018, ABC Classic released two Grigoryan Brothers albums: a disc of Bach Concertos, recorded with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and arranged for Slava and Leonard by their father Edward, and a Latin-themed soundtrack they created for the award-winning movie A Boy Called Sailboat. To celebrate the movie’s success at international film festivals, the Grigoryan Brothers completed an Australian national tour of special screenings performing the soundtrack to the movie live. Slava and Leonard are blessed with an uncanny ability to perform so seamlessly as a duo that they play and ‘breathe’ as one. Growing up and performing together does not guarantee a symbiotic relationship, but what does create the perfect storm is the mutual respect and admiration the brothers have for each other. Perhaps this is the intangible quality that creates their ability to connect with listeners across such a broad range of musical styles.
COMING UP
TINALLEY STRING QUARTET WITH JOHN BELL Saturday 10 April | 11.00am | 2.30pm Sunday 11 April | 11.00am PHILIP QUAST WITH ANNE-MAREE MCDONALD Saturday 17 April | 7.30pm Tickets are available at www.ukaria.com
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In memory of Joan Scott Fred and Susan Mann
Supporters ($5000+)*
Peter Tonkin and Rosalind Martin
Valerian Adamek
Robert and Chris Waltham
Kym and Bron Anderson
Janet Worth
John and Sue Arthurson
Pamela Yule
James and Carol Banman
Anonymous (7)
Rob Brookman AM and Verity Laughton Amanda Harkness and Karen Barrett Fran Gerard AM Andrew and Hiroko Gwinnett Janet McLachlan Josephine Prosser In memory of Mrs Chris Steele Scott OAM Mary Vallentine AO Anonymous (3)
* Cumulative donations from 1 July 2018
UKARIA Cultural Centre 119 Williams Road Mount Barker Summit SA 5251 Australia UKARIA Head Office & Postal 911, Level 9, 147 Pirie Street Adelaide SA 5000 Australia P +61 8 8227 1277 E info@ukaria.com www.ukaria.com Cover Photo: Simon Shiff