New Music Studio - Of Birds and Monuments
Fri, 26 Aug
|Southbank
New Music Studio presents a unique collaboration between staff from the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development and Boon Wurrung Foundation.


Time & Location
26 Aug 2022, 7:30 pm
Southbank, 33-43 Sturt St, Southbank VIC 3006, Australia
About the event
New Music Studio presents a unique collaboration between staff from the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development, and the Boon Wurrung Foundation. This concert will feature the world premiere by Conservatorium composer and musicologist Professor Linda Kouvaras of the Herring Island Piano Sonata, for piano, narrator and recorded sound. The work uses sound design by Dr Roger Alsop, with text by senior Boon Wurrung elder and founder of the Boon Wurrung Foundation, N’arweet Dr Carolyn Briggs AM, to be narrated by Head of the Wilin Centre, Tiriki Onus. The work evokes landmarks, Indigenous sites and historical stories from within a 5km radius of the manmade Herring Island in Melbourne’s Yarra River, with N’arweet Dr Briggs’ moving stories providing a central contrapuntal tapestry to the music. The work is supported by the Australian Council of the Arts, City of Melbourne, APRA/Amcos, and Creative Victoria.
The work will be paired with Jane Hammond’s award-winning Songs from the Box for piano, soprano saxophone, film and narrator. Supported with a major grant by the Australia Council for the Arts, the work tells the story of the plight of Victoria’s critically endangered Helmeted Honeyeater bird, and the work of the local conservationists to save the species. With text by renowned director, writer and producer Theresa Borg, and a stunning new film by Angus Hamilton. With Justin Kenealy, saxophone.
Also featuring Miriama Young’s haunting Grey Ghost for solo piano and recorded sound.
ARTISTS
Piano - Coady Green
Saxophone - Justin Kenealy
Narrator - Tirki Onus
Sound - Jane Hammond & Roger Alsop
Text (Herring Island Piano Sonata) - N’arweet Dr Carolyn Briggs AM
Text (Songs of the Helmeted Honeyeater) - Theresa Borg
Film - Angus Hamilton