2018 Kimberley Echoes Tour
The Narlis
23 August – 3 September Darwin Kununurra Wyndham Broome Port Hedland Karratha
Welcome Tura New Music embarks on our 16th Tour to Northern Australia, bringing international quality art music to regional centres.
It is a great privilege to be welcomed into these communities to share the unique cultural and musical combinations that these tours enable. We most gratefully thank all those communities along with our donors, sponsors, funders, presenting partners and an army of individuals for their commitment and generosity – all coming together to make this tour possible. Finally, our hugest thanks to the musicians for sharing their creativity, stories, energy and generosity. We look forward to each day of the tour and meeting you all along the way. Tos Mahoney, Artistic Director Tura New Music
Program The result of five years of musical collaboration, Kimberley Echoes is a powerful cross-cultural celebration of Kimberley country and its people.
Curated by Tura New Music, an ensemble – The Narlis – evolved featuring didgeridoo virtuoso and singer Mark Atkins (Yamatji) and singer/guitarist Stephen Pigram (Yawuru), with violinist Erkki Veltheim, guitarist Stephen Magnusson, cellist Tristen Parr, percussionist Joe Talia and flautist Tos Mahoney. Songs by Pigram and Atkins, arranged by this unique ensemble, are juxtaposed with new music reflecting the complexity and beauty of the Kimberley. Collaborations with local artists, experiences of traditional Joonba song and dance and touring through the provocative Kimberley landscape have all weaved their influence into this work and program. Ever-evolving, full of spontaneity and life – Kimberley Echoes.
Artists
Mark Atkins Didgeridoo/Vocals/Guitar Acknowledged as one of Australia’s finest didgeridoo players, Mark Atkins is also recognised internationally for his collaborative projects with some of the world’s leading composers and musicians. A descendant of Western Australia’s Yamitji people, as well as of Irish/Australian heritage, Mark is known not only for his masterly playing, but also as a storyteller, composer, percussionist, visual artist and instrument maker. Mark has incorporated the didgeridoo sound into some unlikely musical environments, adding its primal pulse to orchestral works, theatrical productions and dance presentation. As a regular collaborator with Philip Glass, Mark co-wrote Voices for didgeridoo and organ with Philip Glass for the inauguration of the newly refurbished Melbourne Town Hall organ, performed for the Sydney and Melbourne seasons of Naqoyqatsi and toured with Glass’ Orion. Mark’s solo work Grungada has toured Australia, France and Hong Kong. He is a founding member of performance ensemble Black Arm Band. Mark is a prolific instrument maker, creating and painting didgeridoos from logs that he collects in the bush near his home in Tamworth, New South Wales. Exhibitions of his traditional and contemporary visual artwork have been shown in Japan, Europe and the United States.
Stephen Pigram
Erkki Veltheim
Guitar/Ukulele/Vocals/ Harmonica
Violin
Stephen Pigram is a renowned Indigenous musician from the pearling town of Broome, Western Australia. As a singer/songwriter he ––has been central to the continuation and development of Broome Creole music – the unique music style that draws on both the traditional Aboriginal music of Broome and the Dampier Peninsula and the many international cultures that have been a part of Broome culture.
Erkki Veltheim (b. 1976 Finland) is an Australian composer, improviser and performer with an interest in music as both a cultural construct and a sonic phenomenon.
Stephen performs vocals, acoustic guitar, harmonica, ukulele and dulcimer with his idiosyncratic and poetic lyrics reflecting Kimberley life, culture and country. Stephen is part of folk/rock septet The Pigram Brothers who, along with a string of awards, won the Deadly Award for Album Release of the Year in 2006. Stephen was heavily involved in Broome’s famous musical theatre productions Bran Nu Dae and Corrugation Road and he co-produced, composed for and performed in the Brendan Fletcher directed 2010 movie Mad Bastards with brother Alan and Alex Lloyd. His solo album Wanderer was released in 2013 Stephen has been part of Tura’s Regional and Remote Touring Program since 2005 collaborating with many artists along the way introducing them to Kimberley culture and generously sharing that with so many as part of the program.
He has been commissioned by the Adelaide Festival, Vivid Festival, Australian Art Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Musica nova Helsinki. He composed orchestral works for celebrated indigenous musician Gurrumul’s posthumous album ‘Djarimirri’, which debuted at No.1 on the ARIA charts, and the soundtrack to the 2017 feature documentary ‘The Song Keepers’ about the Central Australian Aboriginal Women’s Choir (dir. Naina Sen). He has performed with groups such as the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Australian Art Orchestra and Ensemble Modern, and has featured as a soloist with the London Sinfonietta, Australian Opera and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. He is a member of improvising trio North of North, with Anthony Pateras (piano) and Scott Tinkler (trumpet), and has also performed with musicians from a wide range of styles and backgrounds, including Stephen Pigram, William Barton, Mark Atkins, Shane Howard, Cat Power, Jon Rose, Paul Grabowsky, Wadada Leo Smith, Han Bennink, Mark Atkins, Bae Il Dong, Brett Dean, Robin Fox, Clocked Out, Anthony Burr and Tony Buck. He also regularly collaborates with the visual artist Sabina Maselli on audiovisual and expanded cinema projects. He was a recipient of a 2013 Myer Creative Fellowship.
Stephen Magnusson
Tristen Parr
Guitar
Cello
Stephen Magnusson is considered one of Australia’s most accomplished, versatile and distinct musicians with incredible technique and an astoundingly beautiful tone. His hectic schedule shows that he is a delight to work with and someone that has ‘something unique to say’ in the world of new and improvised music.
Tristen Parr is a classically trained and highly versatile acoustic and electric cellist specialising in new music performance and performer integrated sound design for theatre and dance. This focus has seen Tristen expand his sonic language through the integration of live electronic manipulation of the acoustic and electric cello creating dense and expansive sound worlds. He has toured extensively throughout Australia, Canada, USA, Asia and Europe and has recorded for radio locally, nationally and internationally.
Winner of the Australian Jazz Bell Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, with his quartet MAGNET (with Carl Pannuzzo, Eugene Ball and Sergio Beresovsky), Stephen is currently concentrating on writing for his duo Boundaries with Frank DiSario and trio MAG featuring DiSario and Dave Beck as well as teaching at Monash University. He has worked with many artists including Charlie Haden, Meshell Ndegeocello, Ricki Lee Jones, Sinead O’Connor, John Cale, Gurrumul Yunupingu, Paul Grabowsky, Vince Jones, Katie Noonan, Lisa Young, Christine Sullivan, Michelle Nicole, Martin Breeze, The Assumptions Trio, Megan Washington, Paul Kelly, Jim Black, Mike Nock, Barney McAll, Enrico Rava, Arthur Blythe and many others. Stephen has been involved with Tura’s Regional and Remote Touring Program since 2008 and a founding member of The Narlis.
Tristen is a founding member of the awardwinning Decibel New Music Ensemble whose focus is the commissioning of new electro acoustic works and the development of new graphic score formats and notations. He has been commissioned to create music for the likes of Yirra Yaakin Theatre, The Australian Ballet, Anything Is Valid Dance Theatre Company, Buzz Dance Theatre, Louisville Ballet, LINK Dance Company, Queensland Ballet, Barking Gecko, Community Arts Network WA, The National Maritime Museum, Perth Theatre Company and Black Swan State Theatre Company as well as film and advertising soundtracks. Tristen has won numerous WA Music Industry and Fringe awards and is a Helpmann Award nominee for Best Music Direction. Tristen has been involved with Tura’s metropolitan program as a musician since 1999 and the Remote and Regional Touring Program since 2015 and is a founding member of The Narlis.
Joe Talia
Tos Mahoney
Percussion
Flute
Joe Talia is an Australian drummer, composer and record producer/engineer based in Tokyo, from where he performs and works around the world.
As well as being Tura’s Artistic Director, Tos Mahoney has a special passion for the Northern WA Tours that he initiated and has curated over the past 15 years. He has a parallel passion for playing, creating and improvising. Part of the early ’80s improv set in Perth and across Australia, Tos has had a long collaboration with WA composer/improviser/ Ruined Piano aficionado Ross Bolleter resulting in many recordings published as Alone Together and Desert Air.
He first established his reputation as a drummer in contemporary jazz and improvised music fields. In the last few years a great deal of his work has taken place alongside outsider singer-songwriters (such as Ned Collette, Yuko Kono and Francis Plagne), in groups which synthesize his adventurous, exploratory drumming with the demands of song form. Talia also works in the realm of electro-acoustic composition and performance, working with reel-to-reel tape machines and other analogue devices. Following the release of his musique concrete suite in/exterior in 2006, he established a duo with composer James Rushford. In addition to the collaborations above he has performed with Jim O’Rourke, Keiji Haino, Oren Ambarchi, Toshimaru Nakamura, Akira Sakata, Marco Fusinato, Tetuzi Akiyama, Richard Pinhas, John Duncan, Koichi Makigami, Eiko Ishibashi,Thembi Soddell, Anthea Caddy, Sean Baxter, Robbie Avenaim, David Shea, Rand and Holland, The Australian Art Orchestra among others. As a studio engineer, producer and mixer he has worked on records for Oren Ambarchi, Stephen O’Malley, Keiji Haino, Jim O’Rourke, Fire! and many others.
Across the decades he has also collaborated as a performer with the likes of David Moss, Jon Rose, Jim Denley, Amanda Stewart, Catherine Schieve and many other Australian and international artists. Over the last 30 plus years Tos’s role as Artistic Director, curator and arts advocate has seen the initiation and roll out of a whole raft of projects and programs across Western Australia. A highlight of all that output is Tura’s annual Touring Program with its unique combinations of artists and connection to community they have created.
Guest Artists
Paul Boon Didgeridoo 2
Susie Quicke Vocals 2
Broome based Paul Boon is a self taught didgeridoo performer. Paul produces and performs for The Nomad Two Worlds Project. He recently recorded didgeridoo for a collaboration with International DJ/producer Paul Oakenfold and worked with Keith Harris, a Grammy award winning producer for The Black Eyed Peas.
Singer songwriter Susie Quicke has been performing since 1994. Originally from the tall timbers of the South West she now lives with open skies and endless horizons of the Kimberley, inspired by a lifestyle close to the environment.
Waringarri Dancers 1 Gabriel Nodea Didgeridoo/vocals 2 Warmun artist, musician, cultural leader. ‘I paint what I dream. I do contemporary painting about the Dreaming and what I dream, in accordance with the Dreamtime connection and history of my Mother’s people, Gija people.’
Naomi Pigram Guitar/vocals 2, 3, 4 Naomi Pigram is a saltwater child and songwriting prodigy. Her songwriting is confronting, gritty: laced with the coal-face reality of life in a western Kimberley town.
Waringarri Dancers regularly perform at festivals and art fairs. Their performances feature theatrical beauty of the large crossthread coloured objects the performers carry while stamping their feet in time to powerful singing and the beats of the clapping sticks. This corroboree or dance style has been performed in the Kimberley for thousands of years although the story and song can be current, existing in today.
1 Kununurra 2 Broome 3 Port Hedland 4 Karratha
Waringarri Dancers 2 Waringarri Dancers regularly perform at festivals and art fairs. Their performances feature theatrical beauty of the large cross-thread coloured objects the performers carry while stamping their feet in time to powerful singing and the beats of the clapping sticks. This corroboree or dance style has been performed in the Kimberley for thousands of years although the story and song can be current, existing in today. The dance boards are called balmarra and they represent specific characters in the performance, based on real life events.
Act-Belong-Commit Standing Strong Together with Tura New Music and the Kimberley Echoes Tour
The Tour The Kimberley region is a truly unique and awe-inspiring part of Australia. A melting-pot of histories and cultures, the character of this place is not replicated anywhere else on earth. The Kimberley holds imense cultural value for its Traditional Custodians – the songlines here have remained uninterrupted for thousands of years. There are around 30 distinct Aboriginal language groups in the Kimberley. Tura and The Narlis are privileged to have travelled through this country creating Kimberley Echoes.
Concert Program Darwin 7pm, Thursday 23 August The Lighthouse 2018 Darwin Festival Kununurra 6pm, Sunday 26 August Waringarri Aboriginal Arts Wyndham 6pm, Tuesday 28 August Wyndham Oval Broome 7.30pm, Thursday 30 August Sun Pictures as part of Shinju Matsuri Festival Port Hedland 6pm, Saturday 1 September FORM Courthouse Gallery Gardens Karratha 8pm, Sunday 2 September as part of REAF Festival and PAC Australia Conference
Schools and Community Engagement Kununurra Friday 24 – Monday 27 August Wyndham Tuesday 28 August Broome Wednesday 29 – Friday 31 August Karratha Monday 3 September
Tura Based in Perth, Western Australia, award winning Tura New Music is a producer and an advocate for new music and the sonic arts. Founded in 1987, Tura has a proud history of achievement in initiating cultural development from inner cities to remote communities across Australia. We support, advocate and ignite new music and sound art with a fresh perspective. We provide the means, support and opportunities that enable the relentless pursuit of musical discovery. For the past 17 years, Tura has been touring new music to regional Australia. Tura has built long-lasting relationships with regional, rural and remote communities, creating vital and sustainable programs with workshops, concerts and cultural exchanges. Patron Wayne Martin AC Board Gavin Ryan | Chair Rod Campbell Simon Dawkins Robyn Johnston Justine Lawler Dominique Monteleone Helen Symon
People Tos Mahoney: Founder and Artistic Director Annalisa Oxenburgh: Executive Director Tristen Parr: Artistic Program Manager Anna Sparkes: Marketing and Development Coordinator Liesbeth Goedhart: Development Rachel Davison: Social Media Tracy Routledge: Media Tour People Guy Smith: Production Manager Soraya Touma: Tour Manager AUM: National PR Chil3: Event branding and design Contact Tura New Music Ltd Subiaco Arts Centre 180 Hamersley Road Subiaco, Western Australia 6008 info@tura.com.au +61 8 9228 3711
tura.com.au
Thanks Tura New Music thanks the following organisations and individuals for their support of the award-winning 2018 Kimberley Echoes. Darwin Darwin Festival Felix Preval Emily Mann Harriet Robinson Natasha Woodcock Artback NT Airnorth Lauren Raffa Teyghan Stadelbauer Kununurra Waringarri Aboriginal Arts Shire of Wyndham East Kimberley Kununurra District High School Cathy Cummins Ed MacNeill Natika Hawes-Wright Wyndham Shire of Wyndham East Kimberley Ngnowar Aerwah Aboriginal Corporation Wyndham District High School Moh Pieter Westerbeek Danielle Woodhouse Annie Irvine Broome Nyamba Buru Yawuru Ltd Broome Visitor Centre Sun Pictures Mud and Saltwater Short Film Fest Warmun Art Centre Paul Thomson Shayne Thomson Susie Quicke Paul Boon Mel Virgo Mark Jones
Port Hedland Town of Port Hedland FORM Port Hedland Courthouse Gallery Port Hedland Visitor Centre Amy Plant Lucy Leech Karratha City of Karratha Performing Arts Connections Australia Karratha Senior High School Pippa Davis Emily Zimmerle Rick Heath Katherine Connor Leanne Hunt
Tura Donors “Australia has to learn the value of culture. It is about the quality of our experience of lives lived through dreams dreamed. TURA makes this available for all Australians, particularly those most in need of it. This brave organisation represents an investment of infinite returns.” Paul Grabowsky AO Tura Travellers
Tura Giving Program
The Tura Travellers program offers high level Tura Donors the opportunity to experience the wonders of our annual Touring Program embedded with the touring artists and crew. Seeing the country, meeting the people and hearing the music is a once in a lifetime experience.
Tura thanks its Next30 Leadership Donors:
Contact development@tura.com.au
Ambassadors Irene Lawson and Brendan Kissane Carl Erbrich Visionary Debra Knight Helen Symon & Ian Lulham Joan Spiller and Phillip Yetton Anonymous Champions John Barnier Bux Foundation Katrina Chisholm Peter and Ruth McMullin Paul Sokolowski Shane and Gabrielle Tregillis
To support Tura’s programs go to tura.com.au
Tura Partners Tura’s annual programs are supported by the Government of Western Australia through the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries in association with Lotterywest and the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
The 2018 Kimberley Echoes Tour is curated and produced by Tura New Music. Tura New Music gratefully acknowledges Government Project Funding Partners
The Kimberley Echoes Tour is supported by the State Government through the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries, Lotterywest and the Royalties for Regions program and the Australia Council’s Contemporary Music Touring Fund. Major Partners
Supporting Partners
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Media Partners
Presenting Partners
Kimberley Echoes The Narlis Album out now tura.com.au
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